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Peep Hotc, Blarney Gastk 



IRELAND 



HISTORIC AND PICTURESQUE 



BY 



CHARLES JOHNSTON 



ILLUSTRATED 









PHILADELPHIA 

HENRY T. COAXES & CO. 
I 902 



THE LIBRARY OF 
0ONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

NOV, e 1901 

COPVRIQHT ENTRY 

CLASS ^ XXa No. 
COPY B. 



Copyright 
HENRY T. COATES & CO. 

1901 



n- 



3 



CONTENTS. 



I. Visible and Invisible, 

II. The Great Stone Monuments, 

III. The Cromlech Builders, 

IV. The De Danaans, 
V. Emain of Maca, . 

VI. CUCULAIN THE HeRO, . 

VII. Find and Ossin, . 

VIII. The Messenger of the New ^\ 

IX. The Saints and Scholars, 

X. The Kaids of the Northmen, 

XL The Passing of the Norsemen, 

XII. The Normans, 

XIII. The Triumph of Feudalism, 

XIV. The Jacobite Wars, . 
XV. Conclusion, . 



AY, 



PAGE 
1 

23 

49 
75 

101 
127 
153 
175 
203 
229 
255 
281 
309 
337 
363 



(v) 



LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS. 



Photogravures made by A. W. Elson & Co. 



^v, 



Peep Hole, Blarney Castlf, 

In the Dargle, Co. AVicklow, 

MucKRoss Abbey, Killarney, 

Brandy Island, Glengarriff, 

Sugar Loaf Mountain, Glengarriff, 

River Erne, Belleek, . 

White Rocks, Portrush, 

Powerscourt Waterfall, Co. Wicklo 

Honeycomb, Giant's Causeway, 

Gray Man's Path, Fair Hkad, 

Colleen Bawn Caves, Killarnly, 

Ruins on Scattery Island, . 

Valley of Glendalough and Ruins 

Churches, 

Ancient Cross, Glendalough, 

Round Tower, Antrlm, . 

Giant's Head and Dunluce Castlf, Co. Antrim, 

(vii) 



PAGE 

Frontispiece. 

IG 

3G 

52 

G2 

78 

9G 

112 

130 

144 

1G4 

180 



of the Seven 



208 
222 
242 
258 



Vlll 



LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS. 



KocK Cashel, Euins of O1.D Cathedral, King Cor 

mac's Chapel and Bound Tower, 
DuNLUCE Castle, .... 
Mellifont Abbey, Co. Louth, 
Holy Cross Abbey, Co. Tipperary, 
DoNE(iAL Castle, .... 

TCLLYMORE PARK, Co. DoWN, 

Thomond Bridge, Limerick, . 
Salmon Fishery, Galway^, 
O'Connell's Statue, Dublin, 



PAGE 

266 

284 ; 

298 

304 

324 

340 

350 

366 

372 



VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE. 



IRELAND. 



I. 

VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE. 

Here is an image by which jou may call up and 
remember the natural form and appearance of Ire- 
land : 

Think of the sea gradually rising around her coasts, 
until the waters, deepened everywhere by a hundred 
fathoms, close in upon the land. Of all Ireland there 
will now remain visible above the waves only two 
great armies of islands, facing each other obliquely 
across a channel of open sea. These two armies of 
islands will lie in ordered ranks, their lines stretching 
from northeast to southwest ; they will be equal in 
size, each two hundred miles along the front, and 
seventy miles from front to rear. And the open sea 
between, which divides the two armies, will measure 
seventy miles across. 

Not an island of these two armies, as they lie thus 

obliquely facing each other, will rise as high as three 

(3) 



4 lEELAND. 

thousand feet j only the captains among them will ex- 
ceed a thousand ; nor will there be great variety in 
their forms. All the islands, whether north or south, 
will have gently rounded backs, clothed in pastures 
nearly to the crest, with garments of purple heather 
lying under the sky upon their ridges. Yet for all 
this roundness of outline there will be, towards the 
Atlantic end of either army, a growing sternness of 
aspect, a more sombre ruggedness in the outline of 
the hills, with cliffs and steep ravines setting their 
brows frowning against the deep. 

Hold in mind the image of these two obliquely 
ranged archipelagoes, their length thrice their breadth, 
seaming the blue of the sea, and garmented in dark 
green and purple under the sunshine ; and, thinking 
of them thus, picture to yourself a new rising of the 
land, a new withdrawal of the waters, the waves fall- 
ing and ever falling, till all the hills come forth again, 
and the salt tides roll and ripple away from the valleys, 
leaving their faces for the winds to dry 5 let this go on 
till the land once more takes its familiar form, and 
you will easily call up the visible image of the whole. 

As you stand in the midst of the land, where first 
lay the channel of open sea, you will have, on your 
northern horizon, the beginning of a world of purple- 



VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE. 5 

outlined liills, outliers of the northern mountain re- 
gion, which covers the upper third of the island. On 
all sides about jou, from the eastern sea to the west- 
ern ocean, you Avill have the great central plain, 
dappled with lakes and ribbed with silver rivers, 
another third of the island. Then once more, to the 
south, you will have a region of hills, the last third 
of Ireland, in size just equal to the northern moun- 
tains or the central plain. 

The lines of the northern hills begin with the basalt 
buttresses of Antrim and the granite ribs of Down, 
and pass through northern Ulster and Connacht to the 
headlands of Mayo and Galway. Their rear is held 
by the Donegal ranges, keeping guard against the 
blackness of the northern seas. 

The plain opens from the verge of these hills ; the 
waters that gather on its pleasant pastures and fat 
fields, or among the green moss tracts of its lowlands, 
flow eastward by the Boyne or southwestward by the 
Shannon to the sea. 

Then with the granite mountains of Dublin and 
Wicklow begin the southern hills, stretching through 
south Leinster and Munster to the red sandstone ridges 
of Cork and Kerry, our last vantage-ground against 
the Atlantic. 



6 IRELAND. 

Finally, encircling all, is the perpetual presence of 
the sea, with its foaming, thunderous life or its days 
of dreamy peace 5 around the silver sands or furrowed 
cliffs that gird the island our white waves rush for- 
ever, murmuring the music of eternity. 

Such is this land of Eire, very old, yet full of 
perpetual youth • a thousand times darkened by 
sorrow, yet with a heart of living gladness 5 too 
often visited by evil and pale death, yet welling ever 
up in unconquerable life, — the youth and life and 
gladness that thrill through earth an^ air and sky, 
when the whole world grows beautiful in the front of 
Spring. 

For with us Spring is like the making of a new 
world in the dawn of time. Under the warm wind's 
caressing breath the grass comes forth upon the 
meadows and the hills, chasing dun Winter away. 
Every field is newly vestured in young corn or the 
olive greenness of wheat ; the smell of the earth is 
full of sweetness. White daisies and yellow dande- 
lions star all our pastures 5 and on the green rugged- 
ness of every hillside, or along the shadowed banks 
of every river and every silver stream, amid velvet 
mosses and fringes of new-born ferns, in a million 
nooks and crannies throughout all the land, are strewn 



VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE. 7 

dark violets ; and wreaths of yellow primroses with 
crimped green leaves pour forth a remote and divine 
fragrance ; above them, the larches are dainty with 
new greenery and rosy tassels, and the young leaves 
of beech and oak quiver with fresh life. 

Still the benignance of Spring pours down upon us 
from the sky, till the darkening fields are hemmed in 
between barriers of white hawthorn, heavy with nec- 
tar, and twined with creamy honeysuckle, the finger- 
tips of every blossom coral-red. The living blue 
above throbs Avith the tremulous song of innumerable 
larks ; the measured chant of cuckoos awakens the 
woods ; and through the thickets a whole world's 
gladness sings itself forth from the throat of thrush 
and blackbird. Through the whole land between the 
four seas benediction is everywhere ; blue-bells and 
the rosy fingers of heath deck the mountain-tops, 
where the grouse are crooning to each other among 
the whins 5 down the hillsides into every valley pour 
gladness and greenness and song j there are flowers 
everywhere, even to the very verge of the whisper- 
ing sea. There, among the gray bent-spikes and 
brackens on the sandhills, primroses weave their yel- 
low wreaths ; and little pansies, golden and blue and 
purple, marshal their weird eyes against the spears 



8 IRELAND. 

of dark blue hyacinths^ till the rich tribute of wild 
thyme makes peace between them. 

The blue sky overhead, with its flocks of sunlit 
clouds, softly bends over the gentle bosom of the earth. 
A living spirit throbs everywhere, palpable, audible, 
full of sweetness and sadness immeasurable — sadness 
that is only a more secret joy. 

Then the day grows weary, making way for the 
magic of evening and the oncoming dark with its 
mystery. The tree-stems redden with the sunset 5 
there is a chill sigh in the wind 5 the leaves turn 
before it, burnished against the purple sky. As the 
gloom rises up out of the earth, bands of dark red 
gather on the horizon, seaming the clear bronze of 
the sky, that passes upward into olive-color, merging 
in dark blue overhead. The sun swings down be- 
hind the hills, and purple darkness comes down out 
of the sky 5 the red fades from the tree-stems, the 
cloud-colors die away ; the whole world glimmers 
with the fading whiteness of twilight. Silence gathers 
itself together out of the dark, deepened, not broken, 
by the hushing of the wind among the beech-leaves, 
or the startled cluck of a blackbird, or a wood-pigeon's 
soft murmur, as it dreams in the silver fir. 

Under the brown wings of the dark, the night 



VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE. 9 

throbs with mystic presences ; the hills glimmer with 
an inward life ; whispering voices hurry through the 
air. Another and magical land awakes in the dark, 
full of a living restlessness ; sleepless as the ever- 
moving sea. Everywhere through the night-shrouded 
woods, the shadowy trees seem to interrupt their 
secret whispers till you are gone past. There is 
no sense of loneliness anywhere, but rather a host 
of teeming lives on every hand, palpable though hid- 
den, remote from us though touching our lives, call- 
ing to us through the gloom with wordless voices, 
inviting us to enter and share with them the mystical 
life of this miraculous earth, great mother of us all. 
The dark is full of watching eyes. 

Summer with us is but a brighter Spring, as our 
Winter only prolongs the sadness of Autumn. So 
our year has but two moods, a gay one and a sad 
one. Yet each tinges the other — the mists of Autumn 
veiling the gleam of Spring — Spring smiling through 
the grief of Autumn. When the sad mood comes, 
stripping the trees of their leaves, and the fields of 
their greenness, white mists veil the hills and brood 
among the fading valleys. A shiver runs through 
the air, and the cold branches are starred with tears. 
A poignant grief is over the land, an almost desola- 



10 IKELAND. 

tion, — full of unspoken sorrow^ tongue-tied with un- 
uttered complaint. All the world is lost and forlorn, 
without hope or respite. Everything is given up to 
the dirges of the moaning seas, the white shrouds of 
weeping mist. Wander forth upon the uplands and 
among the lonelj hills and rock-seamed sides of the 
mountains, and you will find the same sadness every- 
where : a grieving world under a grieving sky. 
Quiet desolation hides among the hills, tears tremble 
on every brown grass-blade, white mists of melancholy 
shut out the lower world. 

Whoever has not felt the poignant sadness of the 
leafless days has never known the real Ireland ; the 
sadness that is present, though veiled, in the green 
bravery of Spring, and under the songs of Summer. 
Nor have they ever known the real Ireland who 
have not divined beneath that poignant sadness a 
heart of joy, deep and perpetual, made only keener 
by that sad outward show. 

Here in our visible life is a whisper and hint of 
our life invisible ; of the secret that runs through and 
interprets so much of our history. For very much 
of our nation's life has been like the sadness of those 
autumn days, — a tale of torn leaves, of broken 
branches, of tears everywhere. Tragedy upon 



VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE. 11 

tragedy has filled our land with woe and sorrow, 
and, as men count success, we have failed of it, and 
received only misery and deprivation. He has never 
known the true Ireland who does not feel that woe. 
Yet, more, he knows not the real Ireland who cannot 
feel within that woe the heart of power and jov, — 
the strong life outlasting darkest night, — the soul 
that throbs incessantly under all the calamities of the 
visible world, throughout the long tragedy of our 
history. 

This is our secret : the life that is in sorrow as in 
joy 5 the power that is not more in success than in 
failure — the one soul whose moods these are, Avho 
uses equally life and death. 

For the tale of our life is mainly tragedy. And 
we may outline now the manner in which that tale 
will be told. We shall have, first, a long, dim dawn, 
— mysterious peoples of the hidden past coming 
together to our land from the outlying darkness. A 
first period, which has left abundant and imperishable 
traces everywhere among our hills and valleys, writ- 
ing a large history in massive stone, yet a history 
which, even now, is dim as the dawn it belongs to. 
What can be called forth from that Archaic Dark- 
ness, in the backward and abysm of Time, we shall 



12 IKELAND. 

try to evoke ; drawing the outlines of a people who, 
with large energies in our visible world, toiled yet 
more for the world invisible ; a people uniform 
through the whole land and beyond it, along many 
neighboring shores 5 a people everywhere building ; 
looking back into a long past ; looking forward 
through the mists of the future. A people com- 
memorating the past in a form that should outlast 
the future. A people undertaking great enterprises 
for mysterious ends 5 whose works are everywhere 
among us, to this day, imperishable in giant stone ; 
yet a people whose purposes are mysterious to us, 
whose very name and tongue are quite unknown. 
Their works still live all around us in Ireland, spread 
evenly through the four provinces, a world of the 
vanished past enduring among us into the present j 
and, so mightily did these old builders work, and 
with such large simplicity, that what they built will 
surely outlast every handiwork of our own day, and 
endure through numberless to-morrows, bridging the 
morning and evening twilight of our race. 

After this Archaic Dawn we shall find a mingling 
of four races in Ireland, coming together from 
widely separated homes, unless one of the four be 
the descendant of the archaic race, as well it may 



VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE. 13 

be. From the surging together of these four races 
we shall see, in almost prehistoric times, the growth 
of a well-knit polity ; firm principalities founded, strong 
battles fought, a lasting foundation of law. In this 
Second Epoch, everything that in the first was dim 
and vague grows firm in outline and defined. Names, 
places, persons, — we know them all as if they were 
of to-day. This is the age which flowered in the 
heroic days of Emain of Maca, Emain 'neath the 
beech-trees, the citadel of northeastern Ireland. Here 
we shall find the court of Fergus mac Roeg, a man 
too valiant, too passionate, too generous to rule alto- 
gether wisely ; his star darkened by the gloomy 
genius of Concobar his stepson, the evil lover of ill- 
fated Deirdre. Cuculain, too, the war-loving son of 
Sualtam, shall rise again, — in whom one part of our 
national genius finds its perfect flower. We shall 
hear the thunder of his chariot, at the Battle of the 
Headland of the Kings, when Meave the winsome 
and crafty queen of Connacht comes against him, 
holding in silken chains of her tresses the valiant 
spirit of Fergus. The whole life of that heroic 
epoch, still writ large upon the face of the land, 
shall come forth clear and definite ; we shall stand by 
the threshold of Cuculain's dwelling, and move 



14 lEELAND. 

among the banquet-halls of Emain of Maca. We 
shall look upon the hills and valleys that Meave 
and Deirdre looked on, and hear the clash of 
spear and shield at the Ford of the river, — and 
this even though we must go back two thousand 
years. 

To this will follow a Third Epoch, where another 
side of Ireland's genius will write itself in epic all 
across the land, with songs for every hillside, and 
stories for every vale and grove. Here our more 
passionate and poetic force will break forth in the 
lives of Find, son of Cumal, the lord of warriors ; in 
his son Ossin, most famous bard of the western 
lands, and Ossin's son Oscar, before whose might even 
the fiends and sprites cowered back dismayed. As 
the epoch of Cuculain shows us our valor finding its 
apotheosis, so shall we find in Find and Ossin and 
Oscar the perfect flower of our genius for story and 
song 5 for romantic life and fine insight into nature ; 
for keen wit and gentler humor. The love of nature, 
the passion for visible beauty, and chiefly the visible 
beauty of our land, will here show itself clearly, — a 
sense of nature not merely sensuous, but thrilling 
with hidden and mystic life. We shall find such 
perfection in this more emotional and poetic side of 



VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE. 15 

Irish character as will leave little for coming ages to 
add. In these two early epochs we shall see the per- 
fecting of the natural man ; the moulding of rounded, 
gracious and harmonious lives, inspired with valor 
and the love of beauty and song. 

Did our human destiny stop there, with the perfect 
life of individual men and women, we might well say 
that these two epochs of Ireland contain it all 5 that 
our whole race could go no further. For no man 
lived more valiant than Cuculain, more generous 
than Fergus, more full of the fire of song than Os- 
sin, son of Find. Nor amongst women were any 
sadder than Deirdre and Grania ; craftier than 
Meave, more winsome than Nessa the mother of Con- 
cobar. Perfected flowers of human life all of them, — 
if that be all of human life. So, were this all, we 
might well consent that with the death of Oscar our 
roll of history might close ; there is nothing to add 
that the natural man could add. 

But where the perfecting of the natural man ends, 
our truer human life begins — the life of our ever- 
living soul. The natural man seeks victory ; he 
seeks wealth and possessions and happiness ; the love 
of women, and the loyalty of followers. But the 
natural man trembles in the face of defeat, of sorrow, 



16 lEELAND. 

of subjection ; the natural man cannot raise the black 
veil of death. 

Therefore for the whole world and for our land 
there was needed another epoch, a far more difficult 
lesson, — one so remote from what had been of old, 
that even now we only begin to understand it. To 
the Ireland that had seen the valor of Cuculain, that 
had watched the wars of Fergus, — to the Ireland that 
listened to the deeds of Find and the songs of Os- 
sin, — came the Evangel of Galilee, the darkest yet 
brightest message ever brought to the children of 
earth. If we rightly read that Evangel, it brought 
the doom of the natural man^ and his supersession by 
the man immortal ; it brought the death of our per- 
sonal perfecting and pride, and the rising from the 
dead of the common soul, whereby a man sees an- 
other self in his neighbor ; sees all alike in the one 
Divine. 

Of this one Divine, wherein we all live and live 
forever, pain is no less the minister than pleasure ; 
nay, pain is more its minister, since pleasure has 
already given its message to the natural man. Of 
that one Divine^ sorrow and desolation are the mes- 
sengers, alike with joy and gladness ; even more 
than joy and gladness, for the natural man has tasted 



in- the I^M^iif^ Goi Wfeklow 



VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE. 17 

these. Of that one Divine, black and mysterious 
death is the servant, not less than bright life ; and 
life we had learned of old in the sunshine. 

There came, therefore, to Ireland, as to a land 
cherished for enduring purposes, first the gentler 
side, and then the sterner, of the Gralilean message. 
First, the epoch almost idyllic which followed after 
the mission of Patrick 5 the epoch of learning and 
teaching the simpler phrases of the Word. Churches 
and schools rose everywhere, taking the place of fort 
and embattled camp. . Chants went up at morning 
and at evening, with the incense of prayer, and 
heaven seemed descended upon earth. Our land, 
which had stood so high in the ranks of valor and 
romance, now rose not less eminent for piety and 
fervid zeal, sending forth messengers and ministers 
of the glad news to the heathen lands of northern and 
central Europe, and planting refuges of religion with- 
in their savage bounds. Beauty came forth in stone 
and missal, answering to the beauty of life it was 
inspired by ; and here, if anywhere upon earth 
through a score of centuries, was realized the ideal 
of that prayer for the kingdom, as in heaven, so on 
earth. Here, again, we have most ample memorials 
scattered all abroad throughout the land ; we can 



18 IRELAND. 

call up the whole epoch, and make it stand visible 
before us, visiting every shrine and sacred place of 
that saintly time, seeing, with inner eyes, the foot- 
steps of those who followed that path, first traced out 
by the shores of Gennesaret. 

Once more, if the kingdom come upon earth were 
all of the message, we might halt here 5 for here for- 
giveness and gentle charity performed their perfect 
work, and learning was present with wise counsel to 
guide willing feet in the way. Yet this is not all 5 
nor, if we rightly understand that darkest yet bright- 
est message, are we or is mankind destined for such 
an earthly paradise j our kingdom is not of this world. 
Here was another happiness, another success ; yet 
not in that happiness nor in that success was hid the 
secret 5 it lay far deeper. Therefore we find that 
morning with its sunshine rudely clouded over, its 
promise swept away in the black darkness of storms. 
Something more than holy living remained to be 
learned j there remained the mystery of failure and 
death — that death which is the doorway to our real 
life. Therefore upon our shores broke wave after wave 
of invasion, storm after storm of crudest oppression 
and degradation. In the very dust was our race 
ground down, destitute, afflicted, tormented, accord- 



VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE. 19 

ing to prophecy and promise. Nor was that the end. 
Every bitterness that the heart of man can conceive, 
that the heart of man can inflict, that the heart of 
man can endure, was poured into our cup, and we 
drained it to the dregs. Of that saddest yet most 
potent time we shall record enough to show not only 
what befell through our age of darkness, but also, so 
far as may be, what miraculous intent underlay it, 
what promise the darkness covered, of our future 
light ; what golden rays of dawn were hidden in our 
gloom. 

Finally, from all our fiery trials we shall see the 
genius of our land emerge, tried indeed by fire, yet 
having gained fire's purity ; we shall see that genius 
beginning, as yet with halting speech, to utter its 
most marvelous secret of the soul of man. We shall 
try at least to gain clear sight of our great destiny, 
and thereby of the like destiny of universal man. 

For we cannot doubt that what we have passed 
through, all men and all nations either have passed 
through already, or are to pass through in the time 
to come. There is but one divine law, one everlasting 
purpose and destiny for us all. And if we see other 
nations now entering that time of triumph which passed 
for us so long ago, that perfecting of the natural man, 



20 IRELAND. 

with his valor and his song, we shall with fear and 
reverence remember that before them also lie the 
dark centuries of fiery trial 5 the long night of afflic- 
tion, the vigils of humiliation and suffering. The 
one Divine has not yet laid aside the cup that holds 
the bitter draught, — the drinking of which comes 
ever before the final gift of the waters of life. What 
we passed through, they shall pass through also ; 
what we suffered, they too shall suffer. Well will it 
be with them if, like us, they survive the fierce 
trial, and rise from the fire immortal, born again 
through sacrifice. 

Therefore I see in Ireland a miraculous and divine 
history, a life and destiny invisible, lying hid within 
her visible life. Like that throbbing presence of the 
night which whispers along the hills, this diviner 
whisper, this more miraculous and occult power, lurks 
in our apparent life. From the very gray of her 
morning, the children of Ireland were preoccupied 
with the invisible world ; it was so in the darkest 
hours of our oppression and desolation ; driven from 
this world, we took refuge in that 5 it was not the 
kingdom of heaven upon earth, but the children of 
earth seeking a refuge in heaven. So the same 
note rings and echoes through all our history 5 we 



VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE. 21 

live in the invisible world. If I rightly understand 
our mission and our destiny, it is this : To restore to 
other men the sense of that invisible ; that world of 
our immortality ; as of old our race went forth carry- 
ing the Galilean Evangel. We shall first learn, and 
then teach, that not with wealth can the soul of man 
be satisfied ; that our enduring interest is not here 
but there, in the unseen, the hidden, the immortal, 
for whose purposes exist all the visible beauties of 
the world. If this be our mission and our purpose, 
well may our fair mysterious land deserve her name : 
Iiiis Fail, the Isle of Destiny. 



THE GREAT STONE MONUMENTS. 



n. 

THE GREAT STONE MONUMENTS. 

Westward from Sligo — Town of the River of 
Shells — a tongue of land runs toward the sea between 
two long bays. Where the two bays join their 
waters, a mountain rises precipitous, its gray lime- 
stone rocks soaring sheer upwards, rugged and for- 
midable. Within the shadow of the mountain is 
hidden a wonderful glen — a long tunnel between 
cliffs, densely arched over with trees and fringed with 
ferns 5 even at midday full of a green gloom. It is 
a fitting gateway to the beauty and mystery of the 
mountain. 

Slowly climbing by stony ways, the path reaches 
the summit, a rock table crowned with a pyramid of 
loose boulders, heaped up in olden days as a memo- 
rial of golden-haired Maeve. From the dead queen's 
pyramid a view of surpassing grandeur and beauty 
opens over sea and land, mingled valley and hill. 
The Atlantic stretches in illimitable blue, curved 
round the rim of the sky, a darker mirror of the blue 

above. It is full of throbbing silence and peace. 

(25) 



26 IRELAND. 

Across blue fields of ocean, and facing the noonday 
brightness of the sun, rise the tremendous cliffs of 
Slieve League, gleaming with splendid colors through 
the shimmering air, broad bands of amber and orange 
barred with deeper red ; the blue waves beneath them 
and the green of the uplands above. 

The vast amber wall rises out of the ocean, and 
passes eastward in a golden band till it merges in the 
Donegal highlands with their immeasurable blue. 
Sweeping round a wide bay, the land draws nearer 
again, the far-away blue darkening to purple, and 
then to green and brown. The sky is cut by the out- 
lines of the Leitrim and Sligo hills, a row of rounded 
peaks against the blue, growing paler and more 
translucent in the southern distance. 

Under the sun, there is a white glinting of lakes 
away across the plain, where brown and purple are 
blended with green in broad spaces of mingling color. 
To the west the ground rises again into hills crowded 
behind each other, sombre masses, for ages called the 
Mountains of Storms. Far beyond them, vague as 
blue cloud-wreaths in the blue, are the hills that guard 
our western ocean. From their sunset-verges the 
land draws near again, in the long range of the Mayo 
cliffs, — fierce walls of rock that bar the fiercer ocean 



THE GREAT STONE MONUMENTS. 27 

from a wild world of storm-swept uplands. The cliffs 
gradually lessen, and their colors grow clearer, till 
they sink at last toward the sand-banks of Bally- 
sadare, divided from us only by a channel of shal- 
low sea. 

Tne whole colored circle of sea and land, of moor 
and mountain, is full of the silence of intense and 
mighty power. The ocean is tremulous with the 
breath of life. The mountains, in their stately beauty, 
rise like immortals in the clear azure. The signs 
of our present works are dwarfed to insignificance. 

Everywhere within that wide world of hill and 
plain, and hardly less ancient than the hills them- 
selves, are strewn memorials of another world that 
has vanished, sole survivors of a long-hidden past. 
A wordless history is written there, in giant circles 
of stone and cromlechs of piled blocks, so old that in 
a land of most venerable tradition their very legend 
has vanished away. 

Close under us lies Carrowmore, with its labyrinth 
of cromlechs and stone circles, a very city of dead 
years. There is something awe-inspiring in the mere 
massiveness of these piled and ordered stones, the 
visible boundaries of invisible thoughts ; that awe is 
deepened by the feeling of the tremendous power 



28 lEELAND. 

lavished in bringing them here^ setting them up in 
their ordered groups^ and piling the crowns of the 
cromlechs on other only less gigantic stones j awe 
gives place to overwhelming mystery when we can 
find no kinship to our own thoughts and aims in their 
stately grouping. We are in presence of archaic 
purposes recorded in a massive labyrinth, purposes 
darkly hidden from us in the unknown. 

There are circles of huge boulders ranged at equal 
distances, firmly set upright in the earth. They loom 
vast, like beads of a giant necklace on the velvet 
grass. There are cromlechs set alone — a single huge 
boulder borne aloft in the air on three others of 
hardly less weight. There are cromlechs set in the 
midst of titanic circles of stone, with lesser boulders 
guarding the cromlechs closer at hand. There are 
circles beside circles rising in their grayness, with 
the grass and heather carpeting their aisles. There 
they rest in silence, with the mountain as their com- 
panion, and, beyond the mountain, the ever-murmur- 
ing sea. 

Thus they have kept their watch through long 
dark ages. When sunrise reddens them, their 
shadows stretch westward in bars of darkness over 
the burnished grass. From morning to midday the 



THE GREAT STONE MONUMENTS. 29 

shadows shrink, ever hiding from the sun ; an army 
of wraiths, sprite-Hke able to grow gigantic or draw 
together into mere blots of darkness. When day de- 
clines, the shadows come forth again, joining ghostly 
hands from stone to stone, from circle to circle, under 
the sunset sky, and merging at last into the universal 
realm of night. Thus they weave their web, inex- 
orable as tireless Time. 

There are more than threescore of these circles at 
Carrowmore, under Knocknarea. Yet Carrowmore 
is only one among many memorials of dead years 
within our horizon. At Abbey -quarter, within the 
town-limits of Sligo itself, there is another great ring 
of boulders, the past and the present mingling to- 
gether. On the northern coast, across the Bay of 
Sligo, where the headland of Streedagh juts forth 
into the sea, there is another giant necklace of gray 
blocks ranged upon the moor. Farther along the 
shore, where Bundoran marks the boundary of Done- 
gal, a cromlech and a stone circle rise among the 
sand-banks. All have the same rugged and enduring 
massiveness, all are wrapped in the same mystery. 

Eastward from SHgo, Lough Gill lies Hke a mirror 
framed in hills, wreathed with dark green woods. On 
a hill-top north of the lake, in the Deer-park, is a 



30 lEELAND. 

monument of quite other character — a great oblong 
marked by pillared stones, like an open temple. At 
three points huge stones are laid across from pillar 
to pillar. The whole enclosure was doubtless so 
barred in days of old, a temple of open arches crown- 
ing the summit of the hill. The great ruin by the 
lake keeps its secret well. 

Another ring of giant stones rests on a hillside 
across the lake, under the Cairn hill, with its pyramid 
crown. All these are within easy view from our first 
vantage-point on Knocknarea, yet they are but the 
outposts of an army which spreads everywhere 
throughout the land. They are as common in wild 
and inaccessible places as on the open plain. Some 
rise in lonely islands off the coast ; others on the 
summits of mountains ; yet others in the midst of 
tilled fields. They bear no relation at all to the land 
as it is to-day. The very dispersion of these great 
stone monuments, scattered equally among places 
familiar or wild, speaks of a remote past — a past 
when all places were alike wild, or all alike familiar. 

Where the gale-swept moors of Achill Island rise 
up toward the slope of Slievemore Mountain, there 
are stone circles and cromlechs like the circles of 
Carrowmore. The wild storms of the Atlantic rush 



THE GKEAT STONE MONUMENTS. 31 

past them, and the breakers roar under their cliffs. 
The moorland round the towering mountain is stained 
with ochre and iron under a carpet of heather rough 
as the ocean winds. 

Away to the south from Slievemore the horizon is 
broken by an army of mountains, beginning with the 
Twelve Peaks of Connemara. Eastward of these hills 
are spread the great Galway lakes ; eastward of these 
a wide expanse of plain. This is the famous Moytura 
of traditional history, whose story we shall presently 
tell. Ages ago a decisive battle was fought there ; 
but ages before the battle, if we are not greatly mis- 
led, the stone circles of the plain were already there. 
Tradition says that these circles numbered seven in 
the beginning, but only two remain unbroken. 

Between Galway Bay and the wide estuary of 
the Shannon spread the moorlands of Clare, bleak 
under Atlantic gales, with never a tree for miles in- 
ward from the sea. Like a watch-tower above the 
moorlands stand Slieve Callan, the crown of the 
mountain abruptly shorn. Under the shoulder of 
the great hill, with the rolling moorlands all about it, 
stands a solitary cromlech ; formed of huge flat stones, 
it was at first a roomy chamber shut in on all four 
sides, and roofed by a single enormous block ; the ends 



32 IKELAND. 

have fallen, so that It is now an open tunnel formed 
of three huge stones. 

The coast runs southward from the Shannon to 
the strand of Tralee, the frontier of the southern 
mountain world, where four ranges of red sandstone 
thrust themselves forth towards the ocean, with long 
fiords. running inland between them. On a summit of 
the first of these red ranges, Caherconree above Tralee 
strand, there is a stone circle, massive, gigantic, 
dwelling in utter solitude. 

We have recorded a few only out of many of these 
great stone monuments strewn along our Atlantic 
coast, whether on moor or cliff or remote mountain- 
toj). There are others as notable everywhere in the 
central plain, the limestone world of lakes and rivers. 
On a green hill-crest overlooking the network of in- 
lets of Upper Erne there is a circle greater than any 
we have recorded. The stones are very massive, 
some of them twice the height of a tall man. To 
one who stands within the ring these huge blocks 
of stone shut out the world ; they loom large against 
the sky, full of unspoken secrets like the Sphinx. 
Within this mighty ring the circle of Stonehenge 
might be set, leaving a broad road all round it on 
the grass. 



THE GREAT STONE MONUMENTS. 33 

From Fermanagh, where this huge circle is, we 
gain our best ckie to the age of all these monuments, 
everywhere so much like each other in their massive 
form and dimensions, everywhere so like in their 
utter mystery. Round the lakes of Erne there are 
wide expanses of peat, dug as fuel for centuries, and 
in many places as much as twelve feet deep, on a bed 
of clay, the waste of old glaciers. Though formed 
with incredible slowness, this whole mass of peat has 
grown since some of the great stone monuments were 
built ; if we can tell the time thus taken for its growth 
we know at least the nearer limit of the time that 
divides us from their builders. 

Like a tree, the peat has its time of growth and its 
time of rest. Spring covers it with green, winter 
sees it brown and dead. Thus thin layers are spread 
over it, a layer for a year, and it steadily gains in 
thickness with the passing of the years. The deeper 
levels are buried and pressed down, slowly grow- 
ing firm and rigid, but still keeping the marks of 
the layers that make them up. It is like a dry 
ocean gradually submerging the land. Gathering 
round the great stone circles as they stand on the 
clay, this black sea has risen slowly but surely, till at 
last it has covered them with its dark waves, and 



34 IRELAND. 

they rest in the quiet depths, with a green foam of 
spring freshness far above their heads. 

At Killee and Breagho, near Enniskillen, the peat 
has once more been cut away, restoring some of these 
great stones to the light. If we count the layers 
and measure the thickness of the peat, we can tell 
how many years are represented by its growth.- We 
can, therefore, tell that the great stone circle, which 
the first growth of peat found already there, must be 
at least as old, and may be indefinitely older. By 
careful count it is found that one foot of black peat 
is made up of eight hundred layers ; eight hundred 
summers and eight hundred winters went to the 
building of it. One foot of black peat, therefore, 
will measure the time from before the founding of 
Rome or the First Olympiad to the beginning of our 
era. Another foot will bring us to the crowning of 
Charlemagne. Yet another, to the death of Shakes- 
peare and Cervantes. Since then, only a few inches 
have been added. Here is a chronometer worthy of 
our great cromlechs and stone circles. 

Some of these, as Ave saw, rest on the clay, w^ith 
a sea of peat twelve feet deep around and above 
them. Every foot of the peat stands for eight cen- 
turies. Since the peat began to form, eight or ten 



THE GREAT STONE MONUMENTS. 35 

tliousand years have passed, and Avhen that vast 
period began, the great monuments of stone were 
ah'eady there. How long they had stood in their 
silence before our chronometer began to run we can- 
not even guess. 

At Cavancarragh, on the shoulder of Toppid 
Mountain, some four miles from Enniskillen, there 
is one of these circles ; a ring of huge stone boulders 
with equal spaces between stone and stone. A four- 
fold avenue of great blocks stretches away from it 
along the shoulder of the hill, ending quite abruptly 
at the edge of a ravine, the steep channel of a tor- 
rent. It looks as if the river, gradually undermining 
the hillside, had cut the avenue in halves, so that the 
ravine seems later in date than the stones. But that 
we cannot be quite sure of. This, however, we do 
certainly knoAv : that since the avenue of boulders 
and the circle of huge red stones were ranged in 
order, a covering of peat in some parts twelve feet 
thick has grown around and above them, hiding them 
at last altogether from the day. In places the peat 
has been cut away again, leaving the stones once 
more open to the light, standing, as they always 
stood, on the surface of the clay. 

Here again we get the same measurement. At 



36 IKELAND. 

eight hundred annual layers to the foot, and with 
twelve feet of peat, we have nine thousand six hun- 
dred years, — not for the age of the stone circles, but 
for that part of their age which we are able to 
measure. For we know not how long they were 
there before the peat began to grow. It may have 
been a few years ; it may have been a period as 
great or even greater than the ten thousand years we 
are able to measure. 

The peat gradually displaced an early forest of 
giant oaks. Their stems are still there, standing 
rooted in the older clay. Where they once stood no 
trees now grow. The whole face of the land has 
changed. Some great change of climate must lie 
behind this vanishing of vast forests, this gradual 
growth of peat-covered moors. A dry climate must 
have changed to one much damper ; heat must have 
changed to cold, warm winds to chilly storms. In the 
southern promontories, among red sandstone hills, 
stiU linger survivors of that more genial clime — 
groves of arbutus that speak of Greece or Sicily ; 
ferns, as at Killarney, found elsewhere only in the 
south, in Portugal, or the Canary Islands. 

On the southwestern horizon from Toppid Moun- 
tain, when the sky is clear after rain, you can trace 



Mackross Ab^y, Killarncy 



THE GREAT STOXE MONUMENTS. 37 

the outline of the Curlew hills, our southern limit of 
view from Knocknarea. Up to the foot of the hills 
spreads a level country of pastures dappled with 
lakesj broken into a thousand fantastic inlets by the 
wasting of the limestone rock. The daisies are the 
stars in that green sky. Just beyond the young 
stream of the Shannon, where it links Lough Garra 
to Lough Key, there is a lonely cromlech, whose tre- 
mendous crown was once upheld by five massive pil- 
lars. There is a kindred wildness and mystery in 
the cromlech and the lonely hills. 

Southward again of this, where the town of Lough 
Ilea takes its name from the Gray Lake, stands a high 
hill crowned by a cromlech, with an encircling earth- 
w^ork. It marks a green ring of sacred ground alone 
upon the hill-top, shut off from all the world, and 
with the mysterious monument of piled stones in its 
centre ; here, as always, one huge block upheld in 
the air by only lesser blocks. The Gray Lake itself, 
under this strange sentry on the hill, was in long- 
passed ages a little Venice ; houses built on piles 
lined its shores, set far enough out into the lake for 
safety, ever ready to ward off attack from the land. 
This miniature Venice of Lough Rea is the type of a 
whole epoch of turbulent tribal war, when homes 



38 IRELAND. 

were everywhere clustered within the defence of the 
waters, with stores laid up to last the rigors of a 
siege. 

The contrast between the insecurity and peril of 
the old lake dwellings and the present safety of the 
town, open on all sides, unguarded and free from 
fear, is very marked. But not less complete is the 
contrast between the ancient hamlet, thus hidden for 
security amid the waters, and the great cromlech, 
looming black against the sky on the hilPs summit, 
exposed to the wildness of the winds, utterly un- 
guarded, yet resting there in lonely serenity. 

A little farther south. Lough Grur lies like a white 
mirror among the rolling pasture-lands of Limerick, 
set amongst low hills. On the lake's shore is another 
metropolis of the dead, worthy to compare with Car- 
rowmore on the Sligo headland. Some of the circles 
here are not formed of single stones set at some dis- 
tance from each other, but of a continuous wall of 
great blocks crowded edge to edge. They are like 
round temples open to the sky, and within one of 
these unbroken rings is a lesser ring like an inner 
shrine. All round the lake there are like memorials 
— if we can call memorials these mighty groups of 
stonC; which only remind us how much we have for- 



THE GREAT STONE MONUMENTS. 39 

gotten. There are huge circles of blocks either set 
close together or with an equal space dividing boulder 
from boulder ; some of the giant circles are grouped 
together in twos and threes, others are isolated ; one 
has its centre marked by a single enormous block, 
while another like block stands farther off in lonely 
vastness. Here also stands a chambered cromlech 
of four huge flat blocks roofed over like the cromlech 
under Slieve Callan across the Shannon mouth. 

The southern horizon from Lough Gur is broken 
by the hills of red sandstone rising around Glan- 
worth. Beside the stream, a tributary of the Black- 
water, a huge red cromlech rises over the greenness 
of the meadows like a belated mammoth in its un- 
couth might. To the southwest, under the red hills 
that guard Killarney on the south, the Sullane River 
flows towards the Lee. On its bank is another 
cromlech of red sandstone blocks, twin-brother to 
the Glanworth pile. Beyond it the road passes to- 
wards the sunset through mountain-shadowed glens, 
coming out at last where Kenmare River opens into 
a splendid fiord towards the Atlantic Ocean. At 
Kenmare, in a vale of perfect beauty green with 
groves of arbutus and fringed with thickets of 
fuchsia, stands a great stone circle, the last we shall 



40 IRELAND. 

record to the south. Like all the rest^ it speaks 
of tremendous power^ of unworldly and mysterious 
ends. 

The very antiquity of these huge stone circles sug- 
gests an affinity with the revolving years. And here^ 
perhaps, we may find a clue to their building. They 
may have been destined to record great Time itself, 
great Time that circles forever through the circling 
years. There is first the year to be recorded, with 
its revolving days j white winter gleaming into 
spring 5 summer reddening and fading to autumn. 
Returning winter tells that the year has gone full 
circle 5 the sun among the stars gives the definite 
measure of the days. A ring of thirty-six great 
boulders, set ten paces apart, would give the measure 
of the year in days 5 and of circles 'like this there 
are more than one. 

In this endless ring of days the moon is the meas- 
urer, marking the hours and weeks upon the blue 
belt of night studded with golden stars. Moving 
stealthily among the stars, the moon presently changes 
her place by a distance equal to her own breadth ; 
we call the time this takes an hour. From her rising 
to her setting, she gains her own breadth twelve 
times 'j therefore, the night and the day are divided 



THE GREAT STONE MONUMENTS. 41 

each into twelve hours. Meanwhile she grows from 
crescent to full disk, to wane again to a sickle of 
light, and presently to lose herself in darkness at 
new moon. From full moon to full moon, or from 
one new moon to another, the nearest even measure 
is thirty days ; a circle of thirty stones would record 
this, as the larger circle of thirty-six recorded the 
solar year. In three years there are thrice twelve 
full moons, with one added ; a ring of thirty-seven 
stones representing this would show the simplest re- 
lation between sun and moon. 

The moon, as we saw, stealthily glides among the 
fixed stars, gaining her own width every hour. 
Passing thus along the mid belt of the sphere, she 
makes the complete circuit in twenty-seven days, 
returning to the same point among the stars, or, if it 
should so happen, to the same star, within that time. 
Because the earth has meanwhile moved forward, the 
moon needs three days more to overtake it and gain 
the same relative position towards earth and sun, thus 
growing full again, not after twenty-seven, but after 
thirty days. Circles of twenty-seven and thirty 
days would stand for these lunar epochs, and would, 
for those who understood them, further bear testi- 
mony to the earth's movement in its own great path 



42 IRELAND. 

around the sun. Thus would rings of varying num- 
bers mark the measures of time ', and not these only, 
but the great sweep of orbs engendering them, the 
triumphal march of the spheres through pathless 
ether. The life of our own world would thus be 
shown bound up with the lives of others in ceaseless, 
ever-widening circles, that lead us to the Infinite, the 
Eternal. 

All the cromlechs and circles we have thus far 
recorded are in the western half of our land j there 
are as many, as worthy of note, in the eastern half. 
But as before we can only pick out a few. One of 
these crowns the volcanic peak of Brandon Hill, in 
Kilkenny, dividing the valleys of the Barrow and Nore. 
From the mountain-top you can trace the silver lines 
of the rivers coming together to the south, and flow- 
ing onward to the widening inlet of Wexford harbor, 
where they mingle with the waters of the River Suir. 
On the summit of Brandon Hill stands a great stone 
circle, a ring of huge basalt blocks dominating the 
rich valleys and the surrounding plain. 

In Glen Druid of the Dublin hills is a cromlech 
wdiose granite crown weighs seventy tons. Not far 
off is the Mount Venus cromlech, the covering block 
of which is even more titanic j it is a single stone 



THE GREAT STONE MONUMENTS. 43 

eighty tons in weight. Near Killternan village, a 
short distance off, is yet another cromlech whose top- 
most boulder exceeds both of these, weighing not less 
than ninety tons. Yet vast as all these are, they are 
outstripped by the cromlech of Howth, whose upper 
block is twenty feet square and eight feet thick, a 
single enormous boulder one hundred tons in weight. 
This huge stone was borne in the air upon twelve 
massive pillars of quartz, seven feet above the ground, 
so that a man of average height standing on the 
ground and reaching upward could just touch the 
under surface of the block Avith his finger-tips. Even 
a tall man standing on the shoulders of another as 
tall would quite fail to touch the upper edge of 
the stone. If we give this marvelous monument 
the same age as the Fermanagh circles, as we well 
may, this raising of a single boulder of one hundred 
tons, and balancing it in the air on the crest of mas- 
sive pillars may give us some insight into the engi- 
neering skill of the men of ten thousand years ago. 

Across the central plain from Howth Head the 
first break is the range of Loughcrew hills. Here 
are great stone circles in numbers, not standing alone 
like so many others, but encompassing still stranger 
monuments ; chambered pyramids of boulders, to 



44 IKELAND. 

which we shall later return. They are lesser models 
of the three great pyramids of Brugh on the Boyne, 
where the river sweeps southward in a long curve, 
half-encircling a headland of holy ground. 

From near Howth to the Boyne and north of it, 
the coast is low and flat 5 sandhills matted Avith bent- 
grass and starred with red thyme and tiny pansies, 
yellow and purple and blue. Low tide carries the 
sea almost to the horizon, across a vast wilderness of 
dripping sand where the gulls chatter as they wade 
among the pools. Where the shore rises again 
towards the Carlingford Mountains, another cromlech 
stands under the shadow of granite hills. 

A long fiord with wooded walls divides the Carling- 
ford range from the mountains of Mourne. The great 
dark range thrusts itself forth against the sea in 
somber beauty, overhanging the wide strand of Dun- 
drum Bay. The lesser bay, across whose bar the 
sea moans under the storm-winds, is dominated by 
the hill of Rudraige, named in honor of a hero of old 
days ; but under the shadow of the hill stands a 
more ancient monument, that was gray with age be- 
fore the race of Rudraige was born. On five pillars 
of massive stone is upreared a sixth, of huge and 
formidable bulk, and carrying even to us in our day 



THE GREAT STONE MONUMENTS. 45 

a sense of mystery and might. The potent atmos- 
pliere of a hidden past still breathes from it, whisper- 
in <>• of vanished years, vanished races, vanished 
secrets of the prime. 

There are two circles of enormous stones on the 
tongue of land between Dundrum Bay and Strang- 
ford, both very perfect and marked each in its own 
way from among the rest. The first, at Legamaddy, 
has every huge ^boulder still in place. There is a 
lesser ring of stones within the first circle, with many 
outliers, of enormous size, dotted among the fields. 
It looks as if a herd of huge animals of the early 
world had come together in a circle for the night, the 
young being kept for safety within their ring, while 
others, grazing longer or wandering farther from the 
rest, were approaching the main herd. But nightfall 
coming upon them with dire magic turned them all 
to stone-, and there they remain, sentient, yet 
motionless, awaiting the day of their release. By 
fancies like this we may convey the feeling of mys- 
tery breathing from them. 

On the hill-top of Slieve-na-griddle is another 
circle of the same enormous boulders. A cromlech 
is piled in the midst of it, and an avenue of stones 
leads up to the circle. Its form is that of many cir- 



46 lEELAND. 

cles with enclosed cromlechs at Carrowraore, though 
hi these the avenue is missing. The thought that 
underlies them is the same, though they are separated 
by the Avhole width of the land ; a single cult with a 
single ideal prompted the erection of both. 

At Drumboj on the east bank of the Lagan before 
it reaches Belfast Lough, there is a massive cromlech 
surrounded by a wide ring of earth piled up high 
enough to cut off the sacred space within from all 
view of the outer world. Like the earthwork round 
the cromlech of Lough Rea, it marks the boundary 
of a great nature temple^ open to the sky but shut 
off from mankind. Even now its very atmosphere 
breathes reverence. 

At Finvoy^ in northern Antrim, among the mead- 
ows of the Bann, there is a cromlech within a great 
stone circle like that on Slieve-na-griddle in Down, 
and like many of the Carrowmore rings. The Black 
Lion cromlech in Cavan is encircled with a like ring 
of boulders, and another cromlech not far off rivals 
some of the largest in the immense size of its crown- 
ing block. 

Three cromlechs in the same limestone plain add 
something to the mystery that overhangs all the rest. 
The first, at Lennan in Monaghan, is marked with a 



THE GREAT STONE MONUMENTS. 47 

curious cryptic design, suggesting a clue, yet yield- 
ing none. There is ca like script on the cromlech at 
Castlederg in Tyrone, if indeed the markings were 
ever the record of some thought to be remembered, 
and not mere ornament. The chambered cromlech 
of Lisbellaw in Fermanagh has like markings ; they 
are too similar to be quite independent, yet almost 
too simple to contain a recorded thought. 

AVe come once more to Donegal. On the hill-top 
of Beltaney, near Raphoe, there is a very massive 
circle formed of sixty-seven huge blocks. Here 
again the Stonehenge ring might be set up within 
the Irish circle, leaving an avenue eight paces wide 
all round it. The sacred fire was formerly kindled 
here to mark the birth of Spring. The name of the 
old festival of Beltane still lingers on the hill. At 
Culdaff in north Donegal, at the end of the Inishowen 
peninsula, stands another great stone circle, with 
which we must close our survey of these titanic mon- 
uments. 

We have mentioned a few only among many ; yet 
enough to show their presence everywhere through- 
out the land, in the valleys or on mountain summits, 
in the midst of pastures or on lonely and rugged isles. 
One group, as we have seen, cannot be younger than 



48 lEELAND. 

ten thousand years, and may be far older. The 
others may be well coeval. Their magnitude, their 
ordered ranks, their universal presence, are a start- 
ling revelation of the material powers of the men of 
that remote age ; they are a testimony, not les§ won- 
derful, of the moral force which dedicated so much 
power to ideal ends. Finally, they are a monument 
to remind us how little we yet know of the real history 
of our race. 



THE CROMLECH BUILDERS. 



III. 

THE CKOMLECH BUILDERS. 

In every district of Ireland, therefore, there re- 
main these tremendous and solemn survivors of a 
mighty past. The cromlechs, with their enormous 
masses upheld in the air, rising among the fertile 
fields or daisy-dotted pastures 5 the great circles of 
standing stones, starred everywhere, in the valleys 
or upon the uplands, along the rough sides of heather- 
covered hills. They have everywhere the same as- 
pect of august mystery, the same brooding presence, 
like sentinels of another world. It is impossible not 
to feel their overshadowing majesty. Everywhere 
they follow the same designs in large simplicity 5 in- 
spired by the same purpose, and with the same tire- 
less might overcoming the tremendous obstacles of 
their erection ; they are devoted everywhere not to 
material and earthly ends, but to the ideal purposes 
of the invisible and everlasting, linked with the 
hidden life of those who pass away from us through 
the gates of death. 

Can we find any clue to the builders of these grand 

(51) 



52 lEELAND. 

and enduring memorials, the conditions of their build- 
ing, the age of our land to which they belong 1 If 
we wisely use the abundant knowledge of the past 
already in our possession, there is good reason to be- 
lieve we can, establishing much with entire certainty 
and divining more. 

The standing stones and cromlechs, as we know, 
are everywhere spread over Ireland, so that it is 
probable that throughout the whole country one is 
never out of sight of one of these solemn monuments. 
Their uniform and universal presence shows, there- 
fore, a uniform race dwelling everywhere within the 
four seas, a universal stability and order, allowing 
such great and enduring works to be undertaken and 
completed. We must believe, too, that the builders 
of these giant stone monuments were dominant 
throughout the land, possessing entire power over 
the labor of thousands everywhere ; and even then 
the raising of these titanic masses is almost miracu- 
lous. 

But the history of the standing stones and crom- 
lechs is not a page of Irish history only, nor can we 
limit to our own isle the presence of their builders, 
the conditions of dominion and order under which 
alone they could have been raised. We shall gain 



Brandy Islauid^ Glengarriff 



THE CROMLECH BUILDERS. 53 

our first trustworthy clue by tracing the limits of the 
larger territory, beyond our island, where these same 
gray memorials are found. 

The limits of the region in which alone we find 
these piles and circles of enormous stones are clearly 
and sharply defined, though this region itself is of im- 
mense and imposing extent. It is divided naturally 
into two provinces, both starting from a point some- 
where in the neighborhood of Gibraltar or Mount 
Atlas, and spreading thence over a territory of hun- 
dreds of miles. 

The southern cromlech province, beginning at the 
Strait of Gribraltar, extends eastward along the Afri- 
can coast past Algiers to the headland of Tunis, where 
Carthage stood, at a date far later than the age of 
cromlechs. Were it not for the flaming southern sun, 
the scorched sands, the palms, the shimmering torrid 
air, we might believe these Algerian megaliths be- 
longed to our own land, so perfect is the resemblance, 
so uniform the design, so identical the inspiration. 
The same huge boulders, oblong or egg-shaped, for- 
midable, impressive, are raised aloft on massive sup- 
porting stones J there are the same circles of stones 
hardly less gigantic, with the same mysterious faces, 
the same silent solemnity. Following this line, we 



54 IRELAND. 

find them again in Minorca, Sardinia and Malta 5 
everywhere under warm bkie skies, in lands of 
olives and trailing vines, with the peacock-blue of the 
Mediterranean waves twinkling beneath them. North- 
ward from Minorca, but still in our southern crom- 
lech province, we find them in southeastern Spain, 
in the region of New Carthage, but far older than the 
oldest trace of that ancient city. In lesser numbers 
they follow the Spanish coast up towards the Ebro, 
through vinelands and lands of figs, everywhere under 
summer skies. This province, therefore, our southern 
cromlech province, covers most of the western Med- 
iterranean ; it does not cover, nor even approach, 
Italy or Greece or Egypt, the historic Mediterranean 
lands. We must look for its origin in the oppo- 
site direction — towards Gibraltar, the Pillars of Her- 
cules. 

From the same point, the Pillars of Hercules, be- 
gins our second or northern cromlech region, even 
larger and more extensive than the first, though 
hardly richer in titanic memorials. From Gibraltar, 
the cromlech region passes northward, covering Por- 
tugal and western Spain ; indeed, it probably merges 
in the other province to the eastward, the two in- 
cluding all Spain between them. From northern 



THE CROMLECH BUILDERS. 55 

Spain, turning the flank of the giant Pyrenees at 
Fontarrabia, the cromlech region goes northward and 
ever northward, along the Atlantic coast of France, 
spreading eastward also through the central prov- 
inces, covering the mountains of the Cote d'Or and the 
Cevennes, but nowhere entering north Italy or Ger- 
many, which limit France to the east. There is a 
tremendous culmination of the huge stone monuments 
on the capes and headlands of Brittany, where France 
thrusts herself forward against the Atlantic, cen- 
tring in Carnac, the metropolis of a bygone world. 
Nowhere are there greater riches of titanic stone, in 
circles, in cromlechs, in ranged avenues like huge 
frozen armies or ordered hosts of sleeping elephants. 
From Brittany we pass to Ireland, whose wealth, in- 
herited from dead ages, we have already inventoried, 
and Britain, where the same monuments reappear. 
More numerous to the south and Avest, they yet 
spread all over Britain, including remote northern 
Scotland and the Western Isles. Finally, there is a 
streamer stretching still northeastward, to Norway 
and some of the Baltic Islands. 

We are, therefore, confronted with the visible and 
enduring evidence of a mighty people, spreading in 
two main directions from the Pillars of Hercules — 



56 IRELAND. 

eastward through Gibraltar Strait to sunny Algeria, 
to southern Spain and the Mediterranean isles ; and 
northward, along the stormy shores of the Atlantic, 
from within sight of Africa almost to the Arctic Circle, 
across Spain, Portugal, France, Ireland, Britain, and 
the lands of the Baltic and the North Sea. Through- 
out this vast territory there must have been a com- 
mon people, a common purpose and inspiration, a 
common striving to\(ards the hidden world 5 there 
must have been long ages of order, of power, of 
peace, during which men's hearts could conceive and 
their hands execute memorials so vast, so evidently 
meant to endure to a far distant future, so clearly des- 
tined to ideal ends. There must have been a great 
spiritual purpose, a living belief in the invisible 
world, and a large practical power over natural 
forces, before these huge monuments could be erected. 
Some of the stones upheld in the air in the Irish 
cromlechs weigh eighty or ninety or a hundred tons. 
If we estimate that a well-built man can lift two 
hundred pounds, it would demand the simultaneous 
work of a thousand men to erect them ; and it is at 
least difficult to see how the eifort of a thousand 
men could be applied. 

We are led, therefore, by evidence of the solidest 



THE CROMLECH BUILDERS. 57 

material reality to see this great empire on the At- 
lantic and along the western Mediterranean 5 this 
Atlantean land of the cromlech-builders, as we may 
call it, for want of a better name. As the thought 
and purpose of its inhabitants are uniform through- 
out its whole vast extent, we are led to see in them 
a single homogeneous race, working without rivals, 
without obstacles, Avithout contests, for they seem 
everywhere to have been free to choose what sites 
they would for their gigantic structures. And we 
are irresistibly led to believe that these conditions 
must have endured throughout a vast extent of time, 
for no nation Avhich does not look back to a distant 
past will plan for a distant future. The spiritual 
sweep and view of the cromlech-builders are, there- 
fore, as great as the extent of their territory. This 
mysterious people must have had a life as wonderful 
as that of Greece or Kome or Egypt, whose terri- 
tories we find them everywhere approaching, but 
nowhere invading. 

What we now know of the past history of our race 
is so vast, so incredibly enormous, that we have 
ample space for such a territory, so widespread, so 
enduring, as we have seen demanded by the position 
of the cromlechs and standing stones ; more than 



68 IRELAND. 

that^ so overwhelming are the distances in the dark 
backward and abysm of time, to which we must now 
carry the dawn of human history, that the time 
needed for the building of the cromlechs may seem 
quite recent and insignificant, in view of the mightier 
past, stretching back through geologic ages. The 
nineteenth century may well be called the age of 
resurrection, when long-forgotten epochs of man were 
born again into our knowledge. We can carry back 
that knowledge now to the early Miocene period, to 
which belong the human relics found by the Abbe 
Bourgeois on the uplands of Thenay, in central 
France ; and no one believes that the early Miocene 
age can be as recent as a million years ago. A vast 
space separates the Thenay relics from the later 
traces of man found in Pliocene sands with the bones 
of the archaic meridional elephant, — at a date when 
the German ocean was a forest, full of southern trees 
and huge beasts now long since departed from the 
earth. A period hardly less vast must separate these 
from the close of the glacial age, when man roamed 
the plains of Europe, and sketched the herds of 
mammoths as they cropped the leaves. That huge 
beast, too, has long since departed into the abyss j 
but man the artist, who recorded the massive outline, 



THE CROMLECH BUILDERS. 59 

the huo-e bossed forehead, the formidable bulk of the 
shao-gy arctic elephant, engraved in firm lines on a 
fragment of its tusk, — man still remains. ]\Ian was 
present Avhen rhinoceros and elephant were as com- 
mon in Britain as they are to-day in Southern India 
or Borneo ; when the hippopotamus was as much at 
home in the waters of the Thames as in the Nile and 
Niger-, when huge bears like the grizzly of the 
Rockies, cave-lions and sabre-toothed tigers lurked 
in Devon caverns or chased the bison over the hills 
of Kent. Yet this epoch of huge and ferocious 
monsters, following upon the Age of Ice, is a recent 
chapter of the great epic of man ; there lies far more 
behind it, beyond the Age of Ice to the immensely 
distant Pliocene; beyond this as far as the early 
Miocene ; beyond this, again, how much further we 
know not, towards the beginningless beginning, the 

infinite. 

We are, therefore, face to face with an ordered 
series of almost boundless ages, geologic epochs of 
human history succeeding each other in majestic pro- 
cession, as the face of our island was now tropical, 
now arctic ; as the seas swelled up and covered the 
hills, or the bottom of the deep drove back the ocean 
and became dry land, an unbroken continent. The 



60 IRELAND. 

wild dreams of romance never approached the splen- 
did outlines of this certain history. 

There are dim outlines of man throughout all these 
ages, but only at a comparatively recent date have 
we traditions and evidence pointing to still surviving 
races. At a period of only a few thousand years ago, 
we begin to catch glimpses of a northern race whom 
the old Grreeks and Romans called Hyperboreans or 
Far-Northerners ; a race wild and little skilled in the 
arts of life 5 a race of small stature, slight, dusky, 
with piercing eyes, low brows, and of forbidding face. 
This race was scattered over lands far north of the 
Mediterranean, dwelling in caves and dens of the 
earth, and lingering on unchanged from the days of 
mammoth and cave-bear. We have slight but defi- 
nite knowledge of this very ancient race — enough to 
show us that its peculiar type lingers to this day in 
a few remote islands on the Galway and Kerry coast, 
mingled with many later races. This type we find 
described in old Gaelic records as the Firbolgs, a 
race weak and furtive, dusky and keen-eyed, subjected 
by later races of greater force. Yet from this race, 
as if to show the inherent and equal power of the 
soul, came holy saints and mighty warriors 5 to the 
old race of the Firbolgs belong Saint Mansuy, 



THE CROMLECH BUILDERS. 61 

apostle of Belgium, and Roderick O'Conor, the last 
king of united Ireland. In gloomy mountain glens 
and lonely ocean islands still it lingers, unvanquished, 
tenacious, obscurely working out its secret destiny. 

This slight and low-browed race, of dark or sallow 
visage, and witli black crisp hair, this Hyperborean 
people, is the oldest we can gain a clear view of in 
our island's history ; but we know nothing of its 
extension or powers which would warrant us in be- 
lieving that this was the race which built the crom- 
lechs. Greek and Roman tradition, in this only cor- 
roborating the actual traces we ourselves possess of 
these old races, tells us of another people many thou- 
sand years ago overrunning and dominating the Fir- 
bolgs ; a race of taller stature, of handsome features, 
though also dark, but with softer black hair, not crisp 
and tufted like the hair of the dwarfish earlier race. 
Of this second conquering race, tall and handsome, 
we have abundant traces, gathered from many lands 
where they dwelt ; bodies preserved by art or nature, 
in caverns or sepulchres of stone; ornaments, pot- 
tery, works decorative and useful, and covering sev- 
eral thousand years in succession. But better than 
this, we have present, through nearly every land 
where we know of them in the past, a Uving rem- 



62 lEELAND. 

nant of this ancient race, like it in every particular 
of stature, form, complexion and visage, identical in 
character and temper, tendency and type of mind. 

In Ireland we find this tall, dark race over all the 
west of the island, but most numerous in Kerry, 
Clare, Galway and Mayo 5 in those regions where, 
we know, the older population was least disturbed. 
In remote villages among the mountains, reached by 
bridle-paths between heath-covered hills ; in the settle- 
ments of fishermen, under some cliff or in the shel- 
tered nook of one of our great western bays 5 or 
among the lonely, little visited Atlantic islands, this 
dark, handsome race, with its black hair, dark-brown 
eyes, sallow skin and high forehead, still holds its 
own, as a second layer above the remnant of the far 
more ancient Firbolg Hyperboreans. We find the 
same race also among the Donegal highlands, here 
and there in the central plain or in the south, and 
nowhere entirely missing among the varied races 
towards the eastern sea. 

But it is by no means in Ireland only that this tall, 
dark, western race is found. It is numerously repre- 
sented in the nearest extension of the contiTaent, 
among the headlands and bays and isles of Brittany 
—a land so like our own western seaboard, with its 



Sugar Loaf Mountain^ Glcngfarriff 



THE CROMLECH BUILDERS. 63 

wild Atlantic storms. Following the ocean south- 
ward, we find the same race extending to the 
Loire, the Garonne, the Pyrenees ; stretching some- 
what inland also, but clinging everywhere to the 
Atlantic, as we also saw it cling in Ireland. In ear- 
lier centuries, long before our era opened, we find this 
same race spread far to the east, — as far, almost, as the 
German and Italian frontier, — so that at one time it 
held almost complete possession of France. South 
of the Pyrenees we find it once more ; dominant in 
Portugal, less strongly represented in Spain, yet still 
supplying a considerable part of the population of 
the whole peninsula, as it does in Ireland at the pres- 
ent day. But it does not stop with Spain, or even 
Europe. We find the same race again in the Guanches 
of the Canary islands, off the African coast ; and, 
stranger still, we find mummies of this race, of great 
antiquity, in the cave-tombs of TenerifFe. Further, 
we have ample evidence of its presence, until dis- 
placed by Moorish invaders, all along northern Africa 
as far as Tunis j and Ave come across it again amongst 
the living races in the Mediterranean isles, in Sar- 
dinia, Sicily and Southern Italy. Finally, the Tua- 
regs of the Central Sahara belong to the same type. 
Everywhere the same tall, dark race, handsome, 



64 lEELAND. 

imaginative ; with a quite definite form of head, of 
brow, of eyes ; a well-marked character of visage, 
complexion, and texture of hair. 

Thus far the southern extension of this, our sec- 
ond Irish race ; we may look for a moment at its dis- 
tribution in the north. Across the shallow sea which 
separates us from Britain we find the same race, 
clinging always to the Atlantic seaboard. It dominates 
south Wales, where its presence was remarked and 
commented on by the invading Romans. It is pres- 
ent elsewhere through the Welsh mountains, and 
much more sparsely over the east of England j but 
we have ample evidence that at one time this tall, dark 
race held the whole of England in undisputed pos- 
session, except, perhaps, for a remnant of the Hyper- 
borean dwarfs. In the west of Scotland, and espe- 
cially in the Western Isles, it is once more numerous ; 
and we find offshoots of the same race in the dark- 
haired Norwegians, — still holding to the seaboard of 
the Atlantic. 

Such is the distribution of this once dominant but 
now dwindled race, which has gradually descended 
from the summit of power as ancient Rome descended, 
as Greece descended, or Assyria or Egypt. But we 
can look back with certainty to a time when this 



THE CROMLECH BUILDERS. 65 

race, and this race only, held complete possession of 
all the lands we have mentioned, in north or south, 
in Europe or northern Africa ; holding everywhere to 
the Atlantic coast, or, as in the Mediterranean isles, 
evidently pressing inward from the Atlantic, past the 
Pillars of Hercules, through the Strait of Gibraltar. 

It is evident at once that the territory of this race 
corresponds exact^^, throughout many countries, with 
the territory of the cromlechs and standing stones ; 
where we find the one, as in Ireland, Brittany, Spain, 
we find the other ; where the one is absent, as in 
Germany, or northern Italy or Greece, the other is 
likewise absent. The identity is complete. We are 
justified, therefore, in giving the same provisional 
name to both, and calling them Atlantean, from their 
evident origin not far from Atlas, and their every- 
where cUnging to the Atlantic coast. We can find 
traces of no other race which at all closely fulfills the 
necessary conditions of uniform and undisputed ex- 
tension, through a long epoch, over the whole crom- 
lech region — the only conditions under which we can 
conceive of the erection of these gigantic monuments, 
or of the long estabUshed and universally extended 
spiritual conditions which make possible such vast 
ideal enterprises. 



6Q IRELAND. 

In this race^ therefore, which we have called At- 
lantean, we find the conditions fulfilled ; of this race, 
and of no other, we still find a lingering remnant in 
each of the cromlech countries ; and we hardly find a 
trace of this race, either now or in the past, in the 
lands which have no cromlechs or standing stones. 

We have already seen that the standing stones of 
Cavancarragh, four miles from Fermanagh, were, 
within the memory of men still living or of their 
fathers, buried under ten or twelve feet of peat, 
which had evidently formed there after their erection. 
We have here a natural chronometer ; for we know 
the rate at which peat forms, and we can, therefore, 
assign a certain age to a given depth. We have 
given one mode of reckoning already ; we find it 
corroborated by another. In the Somme valley, in 
northern France, we have a Nature's timepiece ; in 
the peat, at different levels, are relics of the Roman 
age ; of the Graulish age which preceded it 5 and, far 
deeper, of pre-historic races, like our Atlanteans, who 
preceded the Gauls. The date of the Roman remains 
we know accurately ; and from this standard we find 
that the peat grows regularly some three centimeters 
a century, or a foot in a thousand years. 

On the mountain side, as at Cavancarragh, the 



THE CROMLFX'H LUILDERS. 67 

growth is likely to be slower than in a river valley ; 
yet w^e may take the same rate, a foot a thousand 
years, and we shall have, for this great stone circle, 
an antiquity of ten or twelve thousand years at least. 
This assumes that the peat began to form as soon as 
the monument was completed ; but the contrary may 
be the case ; centuries may have intervened. 

We may, however, take this as a provisional date, 
and say that our cromlech epoch, the epoch of the 
Atlantean builders, from Algeria to Ireland, from Ire- 
land to the Bakic, is ten or twelve thousand years ago ; 
extending, perhaps, much further back in the past, 
and in certain regions coming much further down 
towards the present, but having a period of twelve 
thousand years ago as its central date. It happens 
that we have traditions of a great dispersion from the 
very centre we have been led to fix, the neighbor- 
hood of Atlas or Gibraltar, and that to this dispersion 
tradition has given a date over eleven thousand 
years ago ; but to this side of the subject we cannot 
more fully allude ; it would take us too far atield. 

We have gone far enough to make it tolerably 
certain, first, that these great and wonderful monu- 
ments were built when uniform conditions of order, 
uniform religious beliefs and aspirations, and a uni- 



68 lEELAND. 

form mastery over natural forces extended through- 
out a vast region spreading northward and east- 
ward from Mount Atlas or G-ibraltar ; we have seen, 
next, that these conditions were furnished when a 
well-defined race, whom we have called Atlantean, 
was spread as the dominant element over this whole 
region ; and, finally, Ave have seen reason to fix on a 
period some eleven or twelve thousand years ago as 
the central period of that domination, though it may 
have begun, and probably did begin, many centuries 
earlier. The distribution of the cromlechs is certain ; 
the distribution of the race is certain ; the age of one 
characteristic group of the monuments is certain. 
Further than this we need not go. 

When we try to form a clearer image of the life of 
this tall archaic race of cromlech-builders, we can 
divine very much to fill the picture. We note, to 
begin with, that not only do they always hold to the 
Atlantic ocean as something kindred and familiar, 
but that they are found everywhere in islands at such 
distances from the nearest coasts as would demand a 
certain seamanship for their arrival. This is true of 
their presence in Malta, Minorca, Sardinia ; it is even 
more true of Ireland, the Western Isles of Scotland, 
the Norwegian Isles ; all of which are surrounded by 



THE CROMLECH BUILDERS. 69 

stormy and treacherous seas, where wrecks are very 
common even in our day. We must believe that our 
tall, dark invaders were a race of seamen, thoroughly 
skilled in the dangerous navigation of these dark 
seas 5 Csesar marveled at, and imitated, the ship- 
building of the natives of Brittany in his day ; 
Ave equally admire the prowess of their sons, the 
Breton fishermen, in our own times. We find, too, 
that in the western districts and ocean islands of our 
own Ireland the tall, dark race often follows the sea, 
showing the same hereditary skill and daring 5 a skill 
which certainly marked the first invaders of that race, 
or they would never have reached our island at all. 
We are the more justified in seeing, in these dark 
cromlech-builders, the Fomorians of old Gaelic tra- 
dition, who came up out of the sea and subjugated the 
Firbolgs. 

Even to those familiar with the geological record 
of man it is sufficiently startling to find that the Fir- 
bolgs, the early dwarfish race of Hyperboreans, in 
all probability were ignorant of boats ; that they 
almost certainly came to our island dry-shod, as they 
had come earlier to Britain, migrating over unbroken 
spaces of land to what afterwards became the isle of 
Erin J for this race we find everywhere associated 



70 lEELAND. 

with the mammoth — on the continent^ in Britain^ in 
our own island — and the mammoths certainly never 
came over in ships. Needless to say, there is abun- 
dant geological evidence as well, to show our former 
union with continental Europe^ — though of course at 
a time immensely more remote than ten or twelve 
thousand years ago. 

We are, therefore, led to identify our Atlantean 
race of hardy seamen with the Fomorians who came 
up out of the sea and found the furtive Firbolgs in 
possession of our island ; and to this race, the Fo- 
morians of the sea, we credit the building of crom- 
lechs and standing stones, not only among ourselves, 
but in Norway, in Britain, in Brittany, in Spain, in 
Africa. 

We shall presently pick up the thread of tradition, 
as we find it in Ireland, and try to follow the doings 
and life of the Fomorian invaders ; but in the mean- 
time we may try to gain some insight into the most 
mysterious and enduring of their works. The crom- 
lechs which have been excavated in many cases are 
found to contain the funereal urns of a people who 
burned their dead. It does not follow that their first 
and only use was as tombs 5 but if we think of them 
as tombs only, we must the more marvel at the faith 



THE CROMLECH BUILDERS. 71 

of the builders, and their firm belief in the reality 
and overwhelming import of the other world which 
we enter at death. For of dwellings for the living, 
of fortresses or storehouses, of defences against the 
foes who later invaded them, we find few traces j 
nothing at all to compare with their massive mauso- 
leums. The other world, for them, was a far 
weightier concern than this, and to the purposes of 
that world, as they conceived it, all their energies 
were directed. We can hardly doubt that, like other 
races who pay extreme reverence to the dead, their 
inner vision beheld these departed ones still around 
them and among them, forming with them a single 
race, a single family, a single life. This world was 
for them only the threshold of the other, the place 
of preparation. To that other their thoughts all 
turned, for that other they raised these titanic build- 
ings. The solemn masses and simple grandeur of 
the cromlechs fitly symbolize the mood of reverence 
in which they drew near to the sublime world of the 
hidden ; the awe with which their handiwork afiirmed 
how greatly that world outweighs this. At these 
houses of the dead they were joined in spirit and 
communion with those who had passed away ; once 
more united with their fathers and their fathers' 



72 IRELAND. 

fathers, from the dim beginning of their race. The 
air, for them, was full of spirits. Only the dead 
truly lived. 

The circles of standing stones are also devoted to 
ideal ends. Though the men who set them up could 
have built not less wonderful forts or dwellings of 
stone, we find none of these ; nor has any worldly 
purpose ever been assigned to the stone circles. Yet 
there seems to be a very simple interpretation of their 
symbology ; the circle, through all antiquity, stood 
for the circling year, which ever returns to its point 
of departure, spring repeating spring, summer answer- 
ing to summer, winter with its icy winds only the 
return of former winters : the circling year and its 
landmarks, Avhether four seasons, or twelve months, 
or twenty-seven lunar mansions, through one of which 
the wandering moon passes in a day. We should thus 
have circles of twelve or twenty-seven stones, or 
four outlying stones at equal distances, for the four 
seasons, the regents of the year. By counting the 
stones in each circle we can tell to which division of 
the year they belonged, whether the solar months or 
the lunar mansions. 

But with all ancient nations the cycle of the year 
was only the symbol of the spiritual cycle of the 



THE CROMLECH BUILDERS. 73 

soul, the path of birth and death. We must remem- 
ber that even for ourselves the same svmbolism holds : 
in the winter we celebrate the Incarnation ; in spring, 
the Crucifixion ; in summer, the birth of the beloved 
disciple ; in autumn, the day of All Souls, the feast of 
the dead. Thus for us, too, the succeeding seasons 
only symbolize the stages of a spiritual life, the 
august procession of the soul. 

We cannot think it Avas otherwise Avith a people 
who lived and built so majestically for the hidden 
world ; these great stone circles symbolized for them, 
we must believe, the circling life of the soul, the 
cycle of necessity, with the door of liberation to the 
home of the blest, who have reached perfect freedom 
and go no more out. We may picture in imagination 
their solemn celebrations ; priests robed, perhaps, in 
the mingled green and purple of their hills, passing 
within the circle, chanting some archaic hymn of 
the Divine. 



THE DE DANAANS. 



IV. 

THE DE DANAANS. 

In the dim days of Fomorian and Firbolg, and for 
ages after, Erin was a land of forests, full of wild 
cattle and deer and wolves. The central plain was 
altogether hidden under green clouds of oak-woods, 
full of long, mysterious alleys, dimpled with sunny 
glades, echoing in spring and summer to the songs 
of innumerable birds. Everywhere through the 
wide and gloomy forests were the blue mirrors of 
lakes, starred with shaggy islands, the hanging hills 
descending verdant to the water's edge. Silver rivers 
spread their network among the woods, and the lakes 
and the quiet reaches of the rivers teemed with trout 
and salmon. The hilly lands to the north and south 
showed purple under the sky from among their forests, 
oak mingling with pine ; and the four seas beat 
around our island with their white fringe of hovering 
gidls. Over all, the arch of the blue, clearer and 
less clouded then than now. A pleasant land, full of 
gladness and mystery. 

We can but obscurely image to ourselves the 

(77) 



78 IRELAND. 

thoughts and deeds of the earliest dwellers in our 
island. We know that thej were skilled in many- 
arts of peace and inured to the shock of war. The 
sky spread above them as over us^ and all around 
them was the green gloom of the forests, the white- 
ness of lakes and rivers, the rough purple of the 
heather. The great happenings of life, childhood 
and age and death, were for them what they are for 
us, yet their blood flowed warmer than ours. Browned 
by wind and sun^ wet by the rain and the early dew 
of the morning, they delighted in the vigor of the 
prime. Their love for kindred, for their friends and 
lovers, was as ours ; and when friends and kindred 
passed into the darkness, they still kept touch with 
their souls in the invisible Beyond. 

The vision of our days is darkened by too much 
poring over earthly things 5 but the men of old, 
like many of our simpler races now, looked confi- 
dently and with intent faith across the threshold. 
For them the dead did not depart — hidden but from 
their eyes, while very near to their souls. Those in 
the beyond were still linked to those on earth j all 
together made one undivided life, neither in the visi- 
ble world alone nor in the hidden world alone, but in 
both ; each according to their destinies and duties. 



River Erne, Bellcck 



THE DE DANAANS. 79 

The men of old Avere immeasurably strong in this 
sense of immortality — a sense based not on faith but 
on knowledge ; on a living touch Avith tliose wjio 
had gone before. They knew both over-world and 
under-world, because they held their souls open to 
the knowledge of both, and did not set their hearts 
on earthly things alone. A strong life close to the 
life of the natural world, a death that was no separa- 
tion, the same human hearts as ours, — further we 
need not go in imagining that far-off time. 

A third people Avas presently added to these two, 
at an epoch fixed by tradition some four thousand 
years ago. A vivid picture of their coming has been 
handed doAvn to us, and this picture Ave shall repro- 
duce, as many circumstances and particulars of our 
knowledge draAAm from other sources concur to shoAv 
that our old legend is near to the truth, both in time 
and happenings. 

The name these neAvcomers bore Avas Tuata De 
Danaan, the De Danaan tribes ; they were golden- 
haired and full of knowledge, and their coming AA^as 
heavy with destiny for the dark races of Fomor and 
Firbolg. Even to-day, mysterious Avhispers of the 
De Danaans linger among the remote valleys and 
hillsides of our island, and truth is hidden in every 



80 IRELAND. 

legend of their deeds. They have borne a constant 
repute for magical knowledge^ and the first tradition 
of their coming not only echoes that repute, but 
shows how first they came by it. 

The I)e Danaans came from the north ; from what 
land, we shall presently inquire. They landed some- 
where on the northeast coast of our island, says the 
tradition ; the coast of Antrim was doubtless the 
place of their arrival, and we have our choice be- 
tween Larne and the estuary of the Foyle. All 
between, lofty cliffs face a dark and angry sea, where 
no one not familiar with the coast would willingly 
approach ; their later course in the island makes it 
very probable that they came to the Foyle. 

There, still within sight of the Caledonian isles 
and headlands hovering in blue shadows over the 
sea, they entered, where the sun rose over long silver 
sands and hills of chalk, with a grim headland on 
the west towering up into sombre mountains. Once 
within the strait, they had a wide expanse of quiet 
waters on all sides, running deep among the rugged 
hills, and receiving at its further end the river 
Foyle, tempting them further and further with their 
ships. Up the Foyle went the De Danaan fleet, 
among the oak-woods, the deer gazing wide-eyed at 



THE DE DANAANS. 81 

them from dark caverns of shadow, the wolves peer- 
ing after them in the niglit. Then, when their ships 
would serve them no further, they landed, and, to set 
the seal on their coming, burned their boats, casting 
in their lot with the fate of tlieir new home. Still 
following the streams of the Foyle, for rivers were 
the only pathways tlirough the darkness of the woods, 
they came to the Lakes of Erne, then, as now, beau- 
tiful with innumerable islands, and draped with cur- 
tains of forest. Beyond Erne, they fixed their first 
settlement at Mag Rein, the Plain of the Headland, 
within the bounds of what afterwards was Leitrim j 
and at this camp their legend takes up the tale. 

It would seem that the Fomorians were then gath- 
ered further to the west, as well as in the northern 
isles. The Firbolgs had their central stronghold at 
Douin Cain, the Beautiful Eminence, which, tradi- 
tion tells us, later bore the name of Tara. The chief 
among their chiefs Avas Eocaid, son of Ere, remem- 
bered as the last ruler of the Firbolgs. Every man 
of them was a hunter, used to spear and shield, and 
the skins of deer and the shaggy hides of wolves 
were their garments ; tlieir dwellings were built of 
well-fitted oak. To the chief, Eocaid, Erc's son, 
came rumor of the strangers near the Lakes of Erne ; 



82 IRELAND. 

their ships, burned at their debarking, were not there 
to tell of the manner of their coming, and the De 
Danaans themselves bruited it abroad that they had 
come hither by magic, borne upon the wings of the 
wind. The chiefs of Tara gathered together, within 
their fort of earth crowned with a stockade, and took 
counsel how to meet this new adventure. After long 
consultation they chose one from among them, Sreng 
by name, a man of uncommon strength, a warrior 
tried and proven, who should go westward to find 
out more of the De Danaans. 

Doubtless taking certain chosen companions with 
him, Sreng, the man of valor from among the Fir- 
bolgs, set forth on his quest. As in all forest-covered 
countries, the only pathways lay along the river- 
banks, or, in times of drought, through the sand or 
pebbles of their beds. Where the Avoods pressed 
closest upon the streams, the path wound from one 
bank to the other, crossing by fords or stepping- 
stones, or by a bridge of tree-trunks. So went 
Sreng, careful and keen-eyed, up the stream of 
the Blackwater, and thence to the Erne, and so 
drew near to the Plain of the Headland, where 
was the De Danaan camp. They, too, had word 
of his coming from their scouts and hunters, and 



THE DE DANAANS. 83 

sent forth Breas^ one among their bravest, to meet 
the envoy. 

They sighted each other and halted, each setting 
his shield in the earth, peering at his adversary above 
its rim. Then, reassured, they came together, and 
Breas first spoke to Sreng. After the first words 
they fell, warrior-like, to examining each other's 
weapons ; Sreng saw that the two spears of Breas the 
De Danaan were thin, slender and long, and sharp- 
pointed, while his own were heavy, thick and point- 
less, but sharply rounded. 

Here we have a note of reality, for spears of these 
two types are well known to us ; those of Sreng were 
chisel-shaped, round-edged, socketed celts ; the De 
Danaan lances were long and slender, like our spears. 
There are two materials also — a beautiful golden 
bronze, shining and gleaming in the sunlight, and a 
darker, ruddier metal, dull and heavy ; and these 
darker spears have sockets for greatly thicker hafts. 
Both also carried swords, made, very likely, the one 
of golden, the other of dull, copper-colored bronze. 

Then, putting these pleasant things aside, they 
turned to weightier matters, and Breas made a pro- 
posal for the De Danaan men. The island was large, 
the forests wide and full of game, the waters sweet 



84 lEELAND. 

and well-stocked with fish. Might they not share it 

between them, and join hands to keep out ail future 

comers ? Sreng could give no final answer j he could 

only put the matter before the Firbolg chiefs 5 so, 

exchanging spears in sign of friendship and for a 

token between them^ they returned each to his own 
camp. 

Sreng of the Firbolgs retraced his path some four- 
score miles among the central forests, and came to 
the Beautiful Eminence, where the Firbolgs had their 
settlement. Eocaid, Erc's son, their chieftain, called 
the lesser chiefs around him, and Sreng made full re- 
port of what he had seen and heard. The Firbolgs, 
pressed on by their fate, decided to refuse all terms 
with the De Danaans, but to give them battle, and 
drive them from the island. So they made ready, 
each man seeing to the straps of his shield, the burn- 
ishing of his thick sword and heavy spear. Eyes 
gleamed out beneath lowering brows all about the 
dwellings of Tara^ and hot words were muttered of 
the coming fight. The dark faces of the Firbolgs 
were full of wrath. 

Breas, returning to the camp of the Tuata De 
Danaan, gave such account of the fierceness and 
strength of Sreng, and the weight and sturdiness of 



THE DE DANAANS. 85 

his weapons, that the hearts of the golden-haired 
newcomers misgave them, and they drew away west- 
ward to the strip of land that lies between the lakes 
of Corrib and Mask. There, tradition tells us, they 
made an encampment upon the hill of Belgadan, near 
the stream that flows through caverns beneath the 
rocks from the northern to the southern lake. From 
their hill-top they had clear view of the plain stretch- 
ing eastward, across which the Firbolg warriors 
must come ; to the right hand and to the left were 
spread the great white waters of the lakes, stretching 
far away to the northern and southern verge of the 
sky. Islands dotted the lakes, and trees mirrored 
themselves in the waters. Behind them, to the west- 
ward, rose a square-topped mountain, crowned by 
a clear tarn 5 and, behind that, tier upon tier of 
hills, stretching dark and sombre along Lough Mask 
to the north, and spreading westward to the twelve 
crystal hills of Connemara. 

Across the plain to the east, then called the Plain 
of Nia, but thereafter Mag Tuiread or Moytura, the 
Plain of the Pillars, lay the forests, and thence issued 
forth the hosts of the Firbolgs, encamping on the 
eastern verge of the open space. Nuada, the De 
Danaan king, once more sought a peaceful issue to 



86 IRELAND. 

their meeting^ but Erc's son Eocaid refused all terms, 
and it was plain to all that thej must fight. 

It was midsummer. The air was warm about 
them, the lake-shores and the plain clothed in green 
of many gently blended shades. The sun shone 
down upon them, and the lakes mirrored the clear 
blue above. From their hill of encampment de- 
scended the De Danaans, with their long slender 
spears gleaming like bright gold, their swords of 
golden bronze firmly grasped, their left hands grip- 
ing the thong of their shields. Golden-haired, with 
flowing tresses, they descended to the fight ; what 
stately battle-song they chanted, what Powers they 
called on for a blessing, we cannot tell ; nor in what 
terms the dark-browed Firbolgs answered them as 
they approached across the plain. All that day did 
the hosts surge together, spear launched against 
spear, and bronze sword clashing against shield ; all 
that day and for three days more, and then the fate 
of the Firbolgs was decided. Great and dire was 
the slaughter of them, so that Erc's son Eocaid saw 
that all was lost. Withdrawing with a hundred of 
his own men about him, Eocaid was seeking water 
to quench his thirst, for the heat of the battle was 
upon him, when he was pursued by a greater band 



THE DE DANAANS. 87 

of the De Danaans, under the three sons of Nemed, 
one of their chieftains. 

Eocaid and his bodyguard fled before Neraed's 
sons, making their way northeastward along the Moy 
river, under the shadow of the Mountains of Storms, 
now wrongly named Ox Mountains. They came at 
last to the great strand called Traig Eotaile, but now 
Ballysadare, the Cataract of the Oaks, — where the 
descending river is cloven into white terraces by the 
rocks, and the sea, retreating at low tide, leaves a 
world of wet sand glinting under the moonlight. 
At the very sea's margin a great battle was fought 
between the last king of the Firbolgs with his men, 
and the De Danaans under Nemed's sons ; so relent- 
less was the fight along the tideways that few re- 
mained to tell of it, for Erc's son Eocaid fell, but 
Nemed's three sons fell likewise^ The three De 
Danaan brothers were buried at the western end of 
the strand, and the place was called The Gravestones 
of the Sons of Nemed, in their memory. The son 
of Ere was buried on the strand, where the waves 
lap along the shore, and his cairn of Traig Eotaile 
still stands by the water-side, last resting-place of the 
last ruler of the Firbolgs. 

Meanwhile the fighting had gone on at Mag Tui- 



88 IRELAND. 

read by the lakes^ till but three hundred of the Fir- 
bolgs were left, with Sreng, the fierce fighter^ at their 
head. Sreng had gained enduring fame by meeting 
Nuada, the De Danaan king, in combat, and smiting 
him so that he clove the shield-rim and cut down 
deep into Nuada's shoulder, disabling him utterly 
from the battle. Seeing themselves quite outnum- 
bered, therefore, the survivors of the Firbolgs with 
Sreng demanded single combat with De Danaan 
champions, but the victors offered them worthy terms 
of peace. The Firbolgs were to hold in lordship 
and freedom whichever they might choose of the five 
provinces 5 the conquerors were to have the rest. 

Sreng looked around among his band of surviv- 
ors, — a little band, though of great valor, — and he re- 
membered the hosts of his people that had entered 
the battle three days before, but now lay strewn 
upon the plain ; and thinking that they had done 
enough for valor he accepted the ofi'ered terms, 
choosing the Western Province for his men. In 
memory of him it was called Cuigead Sreing for gen- 
erations, until Conn of the Five-Score Battles changed 
the name for his own, calling the province Connacht, 
as it is to this day. 

It fared less well with the victors^ and with their 



THE DE DANAANS. 89 

victory were sown seeds of future discord. For 
Nuada, the king, being grievously wounded, was in 
no state to rule, so that the chief power was given 
to Breas, first envoy of the De Danaans. Now Breas 
was only half De Danaan, half Fomor, and would 
not recognize the De Danaan rites or laws of hos- 
pitality, but was a very tyrannous and overbearing 
ruler, so that much evil came of his government. 
Yet for seven years he was endured, even though 
meat nor ale was dispensed at his banquets, accord- 
ing to De Danaan law. 

Mutterings against Breas were rife among the 
chiefs and their followers when the bard Cairbre, 
whose mother Etan was also a maker of verses, came to 
the assembly of Breas. But the bard Avas shown little 
honor and given a mean lodging, — a room without 
fire or bed, with three dry loaves for his fare. The 
bard was full of resentment and set himself to make 
songs against Breas, so that all men repeated his 
verses, and the name of Breas fell into contempt. All 
men's minds were enkindled by the bard, and they 
drove Breas forth from the chieftainship. Breas fled 
to his Fomor kindred in the isles, with his heart full 
of anger and revenge against the De Danaans. 

He sought help of his kindred, and their design 



90 IKELAND. 

was told to the Fomorian chieftains — to Balor of the 
Evil Eye, and to Indec, son of De Domnand, chiefs 
of the Isles. These two leaders gathered ships from 
all the harbors and settlements of the Fomorians, 
from the Hebrides, the Shetlands, and far-distant 
Norway, so that their fleet was thick as gulls above 
a shoal of fish along the north shores of Erin. 

Coming down from the northern isles, they sighted 
the coast of Erin, the peaks of the northwestern 
mountains rising purple towards the clouds, with 
white seas foaming around them. Past towering 
headlands they sailed ; then, drawing in towards the 
shore, they crept under the great cliffs of Slieve 
League, that rose like a many-colored wall from the 
sea to the sky — so high that the great eagles on 
their summits were but specks seen from beneath, so 
high that the ships below seemed like sea-shells to 
those who watched them from above. With the wall 
of the cliffs on their left hand, and the lesser head- 
lands and hills of Sligo on their right, they came 
to that same strand of Ballysadare, the Cataract of 
the Oaks, Avhere the last of the Firbolgs fell. Draw- 
ing their long ships up on the beach, with furled sail 
and oars drawn in, they debarked their army on the 
shore. It was a landing of ill-omen for the Fomor- 



THE DE DANAANS. 91 

iansj that landing beside the cairn of Eocaid ; a 
landing of ill-omen for Indec, son of De Domnand, 
and for Balor of the Evil Eye. 

It was the fall of the leaf when they came ; the 
winds ran crying through the forests, tearing the 
leaves and branches from the oaks, and mourning 
among the pines of the uplands. The sea was gray 
as a gull's back, with dark shadows under the cliffs 
and white tresses of foam along the headlands. At 
evening a cold wind brought the rain beating in from 
the ocean. Thus the Fomorians landed at the Cata- 
ract of the Oaks, and marched inland to the plain 
now called Tirerril in Sligo. The murky sky spread 
over the black and withered waste of the j)lain, 
hemmed in with gloomy hills, wild rocks and ravines, 
and with all the northern horizon broken by distant 
mountains. Here Indec and Balor, and Breas the 
cause of their coming, fixed their camp. They sent 
a message of defiance to the De Danaans, challeng- 
ing them to fight or surrender. The De Danaans 
heard the challenge and made ready to fight. 

Nuada, now called the chieftain of the Silver Arm, 
because the mischief wrought by Sreng's blow on his 
shoulder had been hidden by a silver casing, was 
once more ruler since Breas had been driven out. 



92 IRELAND. 

Besides Nuada, these were De Danaan chieftains: 
Dagda^ the Mighty ; Lug, son of Cian, son of Dian- 
cect, surnamed Lamfada, the Long Armed 5 Ogma, 
of the Sunlike Face 5 and Angus, the Young. They 
summoned the workers in bronze and the armorers, 
and bid them prepare sword and spear for battle, 
charging the makers of spear-haft and shield to per- 
fect their work. The heralds also were ready to 
proclaim the rank of the warriors, and those skilled 
in healing herbs stood prepared to succor the wounded. 
The bards were there also to arouse valor and ardor 
with their songs. 

Then marching westward to the plain of the bat- 
tle among the hills, they set their camp and advanced 
upon the Fomorians. Each man had two spears 
bound with a thong to draw them back after the cast, 
with a shield to ward off blows, and a broad-bladed 
sword of bronze for close combat. With war-chants 
and invocations the two hosts met. The spears, well 
poised and leveled, clove the air, hissing between 
them, and under the weight of the spear-heads and 
their sharp points many in both hosts fell. There 
were cries of the wounded now, mingled with battle- 
songs, and hoarse shouting for vengeance among 
those Avhose sons and brothers and sworn friends fell. 



THE DE DANAANS. 93 

Another cast of the spears, seaming the air between 
as the hosts closed in, and they fell on each other 
with their swords, shields upraised and gold-bronze 
sword-points darting beneath like the tongues of 
serpents. They cut and thrust, each with his eyes 
fixed on the fierce eyes of his foe. 

They fought on the day of the Spirits, now the Eve 
of All Saints ; the Fomorians were routed, and their 
chieftains slain. But of the De Danaans, Nuada, 
once wounded by Sreng of the Firbolgs, now fell by 
the hand of Balor 5 yet Balor also fell, slain by Lug, 
his own dau2;hter's son. 

Thus was the might of the Fomorians broken, and 
the De Danaans ruled unopposed, their power and 
the works of their hands spreading throughout the 
length and breadth of the land. 

Many monuments are accredited to them by tradi- 
tion, but greatest and most wonderful are the pyra- 
mids of stone at Brugli on the Boyne. Some nine 
miles from the sandy seashore, where the Boyne loses 
itself in the waves, there is a broad tongue of meadow- 
land, shut in on three sides southward by the Boyne, 
and to the northeast cut off by a lesser stream that 
joins it. This remote and quiet headland, very 
famous in the annals, was in old days so surrounded 



94 IKELAND. 

by woods that it was like a quiet glade in the forest 
rimmed by the clear waters of the Boyne. The 
Mourne Mountains to the north and the lesser sum- 
mits on the southern sky-line were hidden by the 
trees. The forest wall encircled the green meadow- 
landj and the river fringed with blue forget-me-nots. 
In this quiet spot was the sacred place of the De 
Danaans, and three great pyramids of stone^ a mile 
apart along the river^ mark their three chief sanctu- 
aries. The central is the greatest 5 two hundred thou- 
sand tons of stone heaped up, within a circular wall 
of stone, itself surrounded by a great outer circle 
of standing stones, thirty in number, like gray sen- 
tinels guarding the shrine. In the very heart of the 
pyramid, hushed in perpetual stillness and peace.; is 
the inmost sanctuary, a chamber formed like a cross, 
domed with a lofty roof, and adorned with mysterious 
tracings on the rocks. Shrines like this are found in 
many lands, whether within the heart of the pyra- 
mids of Egypt or in the recesses of India's hills 5 and 
in all lands they have the same purpose. They are 
secret and holy sanctuaries, guarded well from all 
outward influence, where, in the mystic solitude, the 
valiant and great among the living may commune 
with the spirits of the mighty dead. The dead, 



THE DE DANAANS. 95 

though hidden, are not passed away ; their souls are 
in perpetual nearness to ours. If we enter deep 
within ourselves, to the remote shrine of the heart, 
as they entered that secluded shrine, we may find 
the mysterious threshold where their world and our 
world meet. 

In the gloom and silence of those pyramid- 
chambers, the De Danaans thus sought the souls 
of their mighty ones — the Dagda, surnamed the 
Mighty, and Lug the Long-Armed, and Ogma of the 
Sun-like Face, and Angus the Young. From these 
luminous guardians they sought the inbreathing of 
wisdom, drawing into themselves the might of these 
mightier ones, and rising toward the power of their 
immortal world. And to these sacred recesses they 
brought the ashes of their mighty dead, as a token 
that they, too, had passed through the secret gate- 
way to the Land of the Ever Young. 

Some thirty miles to the west of Brugh, on the 
Boyne, a low range of hills rises from the central 
plain, now bearing the name of SUeve na Calliagh, 
the Witch's Hill. In the days of the great forest this 
was the first large open space to the west coming from 
Brugh, and, like it, a quiet and remote refuge among 
the woods. On the hillsides of Slieve na Calliagh are 



96 lEELAND. 

other pyramids of stone, in all things like those of 
Brugh, and with the same chambered sanctuaries, but 
of lesser size ; belonging, perhaps, to a later age, 
when the De Danaans were no longer supreme in the 
land, but took their place beside newcome invaders. 
These lesser shrines were also sacred places, door- 
ways to the hidden world, entrance-gates to the Land 
of the Ever Young. There also was beheld the vision 
of the radiant departed 5 there also were fonts of bap- 
tism, basins wrought of granite brought hither from 
the distant hills of Mourne or Wicklow. As in all 
lands, these fonts were used in the consecration of 
the new birth, from which man rises conscious of his 
immortality. 

In harmony with this faith of theirs, our present 
tradition sees in the De Danaans a still haunting im- 
palpable presence, a race invisible yet real, dwelling 
even now among our hills and valleys. When the life 
of the visible world is hushed, they say, there is an- 
other life in the hidden, where the Dagda Mor and 
Ogma and Lug and Angus still guard the De Danaan 
hosts. The radiance of their nearness is all through 
the land, like the radiance of the sun hidden behind 
storm-clouds, glimmering through the veil. 

In the chambers of those pyramid-shrines are still 



White Rocks, Portrush 



THE DE DANAANS. 97 

traces of the material presence of the De Danaans ; 
not only their baptismal fonts, but more earthly 
things — ornaments, beads of glass and amber, and 
combs with which they combed their golden locks. 
These amber beads, like so many things in the De 
Danaan history, call us to far northern lands by the 
Baltic, whence in all likelihood the De Danaans came; 
for in those Baltic lands we find just such pyramid 
shrines as those at Brugh and on the hillsides of 
Slieve na Calliagh, and their ornaments are the same, 
and the fashion of their spear-heads and shields. 
The plan of the Danish pyramid of Uby is like the 
pyramids of Newgrange and Nowth and Dowth by 
the Boyne, and the carvings on King Grorm's stone 
by the Baltic are like the carvings of stones in our 
own island. On the Baltic shores, too, of most an- 
cient date and belonging to forgotten times, are still 
found fragments and even perfect hulls of just such long 
ships as were needed for the Danaans' coming, like 
the ships they burnt along the reaches of the Foyle. 
By the Baltic, too, and nowhere else, were there 
races with hair yellow as their own amber, or, as our 
island bards say, " so bright that the new-molten gold 
was not brighter ; yellow as the yellow flag-lilies along 
the verges of the rivers." Therefore, in character of 



98 IRELAND. 

race^ in face and feature^ in color and complexion, in 
the form and make of sword and spear and shield^ in 
their knowledge of ships and the paths of the sea, as 
in their ornaments and decorative art, and in those 
majestic pyramids and shrines where they sought 
mystic wisdom, and whither they carried the ashes 
of their dead, as to a place of sacred rest — in all these 
the life of the De Danaans speaks of the Baltic 
shores and the ancient race of golden-haired heroes 
who dwelt there. The honoring of bards, the 
heraldic keeping of traditions and the names of an- 
cestors, also speak of the same home ; and with a 
college of heraldic bards, well-ordered and holding 
due rank and honor, we can well see how the stories 
of their past have come down even to our days, linger- 
ing among our hills and valleys, as the De Danaan 
themselves linger, hidden yet not departed. 

The traditional time of their coming, too, agrees 
well with all we know. Without bronze tools they 
could not have carved the beautifully adorned stones 
that are built into the pyramids by the Boyne ; yet 
there is a certain early ruggedness about these stones 
that falls far short of the perfection of later times. 
Early in the bronze age, therefore, they must be 
placed 5 and the early bronze age, wherever its re- 



THE DE DANAANS. 99 

moteness can be measured, as in the Swiss lakes or 
the peat-mosses of Denmark, cannot be less than four 
thousand years ago, thus well agreeing with our De 
Danaan tradition. We are, therefore, led to believe 
that the tale told by these traditions is in the main a 
true one ; that the races recorded by them came in 
the recorded order 5 that their places of landing are 
faithfully remembered ; that all traditions pointing to 
their earlier homes are worthy of belief, and in full 
accord with all our other knowledge. 



LofC. 



EMAIN OF MACA. 



V. 

EMAIN OF MACA. 
B.C. 50-A.D. 50. 

The battles of Southern and Northern Moytura 
gave the De Danaans sway over the island. After 
they had ruled for many centuries, they in their 
turn were subjected to invasion, as the Firbolg and 
Fomorian had been before them. The newcomers 
were the Sons of MiUd, and their former home was 
either Gaul or Spain. But whether from Gaul or 
Spain, the sons of UiM were of undoubted Gaelic 
race, in every feature of character and complexion 
resembling the continental Gauls. 

We must remember that, in the centuries before 
the northward spread of Rome, the Gauls were the 
great central European power. Twenty-six hundred 
years ago their earlier tribal life was consolidated into 
a stable empire under Ambigatos ; Galicia in Eastern 
Austria and Galicia in Western Spain mark their ex- 
treme borders towards the rising and setting sun. 
Several centuries before the days of Ambigatos, in 

the older period of tribal confederation, was the 

( 103 ) 



104 IRELAND. 

coming of the Gaelic Sons of Milid to Ireland. Tra- 
dition places the date between three and four thou- 
sand years ago. Yet even after that long interval of 
isolation the resemblance between the Irish and con- 
tinental Graels is perfect ; they are tall, solidly built, 
rather inclined to stoutness ; they are fair-skinned, or 
even florid, easily browned by sun and wind. Their 
eyes are gray, greenish or hazel, not clear blue, like the 
eyes of the Baltic race ; and though fair-haired, they 
are easily distinguished from the golden-haired Norse- 
men. Such are the descendants of the Sons of Milid. 
Coming from Gaul or Spain, the Sons of Milid 
landed in one of the great fiords that penetrate be- 
tween the mountains of Kerry — ^long after so named 
from the descendants of Ciar. These same fiords be- 
tween the hills have been the halting-place of conti- 
nental invaders for ages ; hardly a century has passed 
since the last landing there of continental soldiers 5 
there was another invasion a century before that, and 
yet another a hundred years earlier. But the Sons 
of Milid showed the way. They may have come by 
Bantry Bay or the Kenmare River or Dingle Bay ; 
more probably the last, for tradition still points to the 
battlefield where they Avere opposed, on the hills of 
Slieve Mish, above the Dingle fiord. 



EMAIN OF MACA. 105 

But wherever they debarked on that southwestern 
coast they found a land warm and winning as the 
south they had left behind — a land of ever-green 
woods, yew and arbutus mingling with beech and oak 
and fir j rich southern heaths carpeting the hillsides, 
and a soft drapery of ferns upon the rocks. There 
were red masses of overhanging mountain, but in 
the valleys, sheltered and sun-warmed, they found a 
refuge like the Isles of the Blest. The Atlantic, surg- 
ing in great blue rollers, brought the warmth of trop- 
ical seas, and a rich and vivid growth through all the 
glens and vales responded to the sun's caress. 

The De Danaans must ere this have spread through 
all of the island, except the western province assigned 
to the Firbolgs 5 for we find them opposing, — but 
vainly opposing, — the Sons of Milid, at the very 
place of their landing. Here again we find the old 
tradition verified ; for at the spot recorded of old by 
the bards and heralds, among the hills by the pass 
that leads from Dingle to Tralee Bay, numberless 
arrow-heads have been gathered, the gleanings after 
a great combat. The De Danaans fought with sword 
and spear, but, unless they had added to their 
weapons since the days of Breas and Sreng, they did 
not shoot with the bow 5 this was, perhaps, the cause 



106 IRELAND. 

of their defeat, for the De Danaans were defeated 
among the hills on that long headland. 

From their battlefield thej could see the sea on 
either hand, stretching far inland northward and south- 
ward; across these arms of the sea rose other headlands, 
more distant, the armies of hills along them fading 
from green to purple, from purple to clear blue. But 
the De Danaans had burned their boats ; thej sought 
refuge rather by land, retreating northward till they 
came to the shelter of the great central woods. The 
Sons of Milid pursued them, and, overtaking them 
at Tailten on the Blackwater, some ten miles north- 
west of Tara, they fought another battle ; after it, 
the supremacy of the De Danaans definitely passed 
away. 

Yet we have no reason to believe that, any more 
than the Fomorians or Firbolgs, the De Danaans 
ceased to fill their own place in the land. They 
seem, indeed, to have been preponderant in the 
north, and in all likelihood they hold their own there 
even now ; for every addition to our knowledge 
shows us more and more how tenacious is the life of 
races, how firmly they cling to their earliest dwell- 
ings. And though we read of races perishing before 
invaders, this is the mere boasting of conquerors ; 



EM A IN OF MAC A. 107 

more often the newcomers are absorbed among the 
earlier race, and nothing distinctive remains of them 
but a name. We have abundant evidence to show 
that at the present day, as throughout the last three 
thousand years, the four races we have described con- 
tinue to make up the bulk of our population, and pure 
types of each still linger unblended in their most an- 
cient seats ; for, though races mingle, they do not 
thereby lose their own character. The law is rather 
that the type of one or other will come out clear 
in their descendants, all undefined forms tending to 
disappear. 

Nor did any subsequent invasion add new elements ; 
for as all northern Europe is peopled by the same few 
types, every newcomer, — whether from Norway, 
Denmark, Britain or Continental Europe, — but rein- 
forced one of these earlier races. Yet even where 
the ethnical elements are alike, there seems to be a 
difference of destiny and promise — as if the very 
land itself brooded over its children, transforming 
them and molding them to a larger purpose. The 
spiritual life of races goes far deeper than their 
ethnic history. 

It would seem that with the coming of the Sons 
of Milid the destiny of Ireland was rounded and 



108 IKELAND. 

completed ; from that time onward, for more than 
two thousand years, was a period of uniform growth 
and settled life and ideals 5 a period whose history 
and achievements we are only beginning to under- 
stand. At the beginning of that long epoch of set- 
tled life the art of working gold was developed and 
perfected 5 and we have abundance of beautiful gold- 
work from remote times, of such fine design and ex- 
ecution that there is nothing in the world to equal it. 
The modern work of countries where gold is found 
in quantities is commonplace, vulgar and inartistic, 
when compared with the work of the old Irish 
period. Torques, or twisted ribbons of gold, of vary- 
ing size and shape, were worn as diadems, collars, 
or even belts 5 crescent bands of finely embossed 
sheet-gold were worn above the forehead 5 brooches 
and pins of most delicate and imaginative Avorkman- 
ship were used to catch together the folds of richly 
colored cloaks, and rings and bracelets were of not 
less various and exquisite forms. 

We are at no loss to understand the abundance of 
our old goldsmiths' work when we know that even 
now, after being worked for centuries, the Wicklow 
gold-mines have an average yearly yield of some five 
hundred ounces, found, for the most part, in nuggets 



EMAIN OF MACA. 109 

in the beds of streams flowing into the two Avons. 
One mountain torrent bears the name of Gold ]\Iines 
River at the present day, showing the unbroken pres- 
ence of the yellow metal from the time of its first dis- 
covery, over three thousand years ago. It seems 
probable that a liberal alloy of gold gave the golden 
bronze its peculiar excellence and beauty 5 for so rich 
is the lustre, so fine the color of many of our bronze 
axes and spears, that they are hardly less splendid 
than weapons of pure gold. From the perfect design 
and workmanship of these things of gold and bronze, 
more than from any other source, we gain an insight 
into the high culture and skill in the arts which 
marked that most distinctively Irish period, lasting, 
as we have seen, more than two thousand years. 

Early in this same epoch we find traditions of the 
clearing of forests, the sowing of cornfields, the skill 
of dyers in seven colors, earliest of which were purple, 
blue and green. Wells were dug to insure an easily 
accessible supply of pure water, so that we begin to 
think of a settled population dwelling among fields of 
golden grain, pasturing their cattle in rich meadows, 
and depending less on the deer and wild oxen of the 
forest, the salmon of lake and river, and the abun- 
dant fish along the shores. 



110 IKELAND. 

Tradition speaks persistently of bards^ heralds, 
poets and poetesses 5 of music and song 5 of cordial 
and generous social life ; and to the presence of these 
bards, like the skalds of the Northmen, we owe pic- 
tures, even now full of life and color and movement, 
of those days of long ago. 

At a period rather more than two thousand years 
ago, a warrior-queen, Maca by name, founded a great 
fort and citadel at Emain, some two miles west of 
Armagh, in the undulating country of green hills 
and meadows to the south of Lough Neagh. The 
ramparts and earthworks of that ancient fortress can 
still be traced, and we can follow and verify what the 
ancient bards told of the greatness of the stronghold 
of Maca. The plans of all forts of that time seem to 
have been much the same — a wide ring of earthwork, 
with a deep moat, guarded them, and a stockade 
of oak stakes rose above the earthwork, behind 
which the defenders stood, firing volleys of arrows at 
the attacking host. Within this outer circle of de- 
fence there was almost always a central stronghold, 
raised on a great mound of earth ; and this was the 
dwelling of the chief, provincial ruler, or king. 
Lesser mounds upheld the houses of lesser chiefs, and 
all alike seem to have been built of oak, with plank 



EMAIN OF MACA. Ill 

roofs. Safe storehouses of stone were often sunk under- 
ground, beneath the chief's dwelling. In the fort of 
Emain, as in the great fort of Tara in the Boyne 
Valley, there was a banqueting-hall for the warriors, 
and the bards thus describe one of these in the days 
of its glory : '^ The banquet-hall had twelve divisions 
in each wing, Avitli tables and passages round them ; 
there were sixteen attendants on each side, eight 
for the star-watchers, the historians and the scribes, 
in the rear of the hall, and two to each table at 
the door, — a hundred guests in all ; two oxen, two 
sheep and two hogs were divided equally on each 
side at each meal. Beautiful was the appearance 
of the king in that assembly — flowing, slightly 
curling golden hair upon him ; a red buckler with 
stars and beasts wrought of gold and fastenings of 
silver upon him ; a crimson cloak in wide descending 
folds upon him, fastened at his breast by a golden 
brooch set with precious stones ; a neck-torque of 
gold around his neck 5 a white shirt with a full collar, 
and intertwined with threads of gold, upon him ; a 
girdle of gold inlaid with precious stones around 
him ; two wonderful shoes of gold with runings of 
gold upon him ; two spears with golden sockets in 
his hand." 



112 IRELAND. 

We are the more disposed to trust the fidelity of 
the picture, since the foundations of the Tara banquet- 
hall are to be clearly traced to this day — an oblong 
earthwork over seven hundred feet long by ninety 
wide, with the twelve doors still distinctly marked ; 
as for the brooches and torques of gold, some we 
have surpass in magnificence anything here de" 
scribed, and their artistic beauty is eloquent of the 
refinement of spirit that conceived and the skill that 
fashioned them. Spear-heads, too, are of beautiful 
bronze-gold, with tracings round the socket of great 
excellence and charm. 

For a picture of the life of that age, we cannot do 
better than return to Emain of Maca, telling the 
story of one famous generation of warriors and fair 
women who loved and fought there two thousand 
years ago. The ideal of beauty was ^till the golden 
hair and blue eyes of the De Danaans, and we 
cannot doubt that their race persisted side by side 
with the Sons of Milid, retaining a certain predomi- 
nance in the north and northeast of the island, the 
first landing-place of the De Danaan invaders. Of 
this mingled race was the great Rudraige, from whom 
the most famous rulers of Emain descended. Ros 
was the son of Rudraige, and from Roeg and Cass, 



P^wet^-«yui^^- Watcii^ali, -Ca-. Wf^kio'W 



EMAIX OF MACA. 113 

the sons of Ros, came the princes Fergus and 
Factna. Factna, son of Cass, wedded the beautiful 
Nessa, and from their union sprang Concobar, the 
great hero and ruler of Ulster — in those days named 
Ulad, and the dwellers there the Ulaid. Factna died 
while Concobar was yet a boy ; and Nessa, left deso- 
late, was yet so beautiful in her sadness that Fergus 
became her slave, and sued for her favor, though 
himself a king whose favors others sued. Nessa's 
heart was wholly with her son, her life wrapt up in his. 
She answered, therefore, that she would renounce 
her mourning and give her widowed hand to Fergus 
the king, if the king, on his part, would promise 
that Nessa's son Concobar should succeed him, rather 
than the children of Fergus. Full of longing, and 
held in thrall by her beauty, Fergus promised ; and 
this promise Avas the beginning of many calamities, 
for Nessa, the queen, feeling her sway over Fergus, 
and full of ambition for her child, won a promise from 
Fergus that the youth should sit beside him on the 
throne, hearing all pleadings and disputes, and learn- 
ing the art of ruling. But the spirit of Concobar 
was subtle and strong and masterful, and he quickly 
took the greater place in the councils of the Ulaid, 
until Nessa, still confident in her charm, took a 



114 IRELAND. 

promise from Fergus that Concobar should reign for 
one year. 

Fergus, great-hearted warrior, but tender and 
gentle and fond of feasts and merrymaking, was 
very willing to lift the cares of rule from his shoulders 
to the younger shoulders of Nessa's son, and the one 
year thus granted became many years, so that Fergus 
never again mounted his throne. Yet for the love 
he bore to Nessa, Fergus willingly admitted his step- 
son's rule, and remained faithfully upholding him, 
ever merry at the banquets, and leading the martial 
sports and exercises of the youths, the sons of chief- 
tains, at the court. Thus Concobar, son of Nessa, 
came to be ruler over the great fort of Emain, with 
its citadel, its earthworks and outer forts, its strong 
stockade and moat ; ruler of these, and of the chiefs 
of the Ulaid, and chief commander of all the fighting- 
men that followed them. To him came the tribute 
of cattle and horses, of scarlet cloaks and dyed fabrics, 
purj)le and blue and green, and the beryls and emer- 
alds from the mountains of Mourne where the sea 
thunders in the caves, near the great fort of Rudraige. 
Fergus was lord only of the banqueting-hall and of the 
merrymakings of the young chiefs 5 but in all else the 
will of Concobar was supreme and his word was law. 



EMAIN OF MACA. 115 

It happened that before this a child had been born, 
a girl golden-haired and with blue eyes, of whom the 
Druids had foretold many dark and terrible things. 
That the evil might not be wrought through this child 
of sad destiny, the king had from her earliest child- 
hood kept her securely hidden in a lonely fort, and 
there Deirdre grew in solitude, daily increasing in 
beauty and winsomeness. She so won the love of 
those set in guard over her that they relaxed some- 
thing of the strictness of their watch, letting her 
wander a little in the meadows and the verges of the 
woods, gathering flowers, and watching the life of 
birds and wild things there. 

Among the chieftains of the court of Emain was 
one Usnac, of whom were three sons, with Naisi 
strongest and handsomest of the three. Naisi was 
dark, with black locks hanging upon his shoulders 
and dark, gleaming eyes ; and so strongly is unlike 
drawn to unlike that golden-haired Deirdre, seeing 
him in one of her wanderings, felt her heart go forth 
to him utterly. Falling into talk witli him, they ex- 
changed promises of enduring love. Thus the heart 
of Naisi went to Deirdre, as hers had gone to him, so 
that all things were changed for them, growing radi- 
ant with tremulous hope and wistful with longing. 



116 IRELAND. 

Yet the fate that lay upon Deirdre was heavy, and 
all men dreaded it but Naisi ; so that even his brothers, 
the sons of Usnac, feared greatly and would have 
dissuaded him 'from giving his life to the ill-fated one. 
But Naisi would not be dissuaded ; so they met secretly 
many times, in the twilight at the verge of the wood, 
Deirdre's golden hair catching the last gleam of sun- 
light and holding it long into the darkness, while the 
black locks of Naisi, even ere sunset, foreshadowed 
the coming night. In their hearts it was not other- 
wise 5 for Deirdre, full of wonder at the change that 
had come over her, at the song of the birds that 
echoed ever around her even in her dreams, at the 
radiance of the flowers and trees, the sunshine on the 
waters of the river, the vivid gladness over all, — 
Deirdre knew nothing of the dread doom that was 
upon her, and was all joy and wonderment at the 
meetings with her lover, full of fancies and tender 
words and shy caresses ; but Naisi, who knew well 
the fate that overshadowed them like a black cloud 
above a cliff of the sea, strove to be glad and show a 
bold face to his mistress, though his heart many a 
time grew cold wdthin him, thinking on what had be- 
fallen and what might befall. 

For the old foretelling of the star-watchers was not 



EMAIN OF MACA. 117 

the only doom laid upon Deirdre. Concobar the king, 
stern and masterful, crafty and secret in counsel 
though swift as an eagle to slay, — Concobar the king 
had watched Deirdre in her captivity, ever unseen 
of her, and his heart had been moved by the fair 
softness of her skin, the glow of her cheek, the 
brightness of her eyes and hair ; so that the king 
had steadfastly determined in his mind that Deirdre 
should be his, in scorn of all prophecies and warn- 
ings ; that her beauty should be for him alone. This 
the king had determined ; and it was known to Naisi 
the son of Usnac. It was known to him also that what 
Concobar the king determined, he steadfastly car- 
ried out ; for the will of Concobar was strong and 
masterful over all around him. 

Therefore at their meetings two clouds lay upon 
the heart of Naisi : the presentment of the king's 
power and anger, and his relentless hand pursuing 
through the night, and the darker dread of the sight- 
less doom pronounced of old at the birth of Deirdre, 
of which the will of Concobar was but the tool. 
There was gloom in his eyes and silence on his lips 
and a secret dread in his heart. Deirdre wondered at 
it, her own heart being so full of gladness, her eyes 
sparkling, and endearing words ever ready on her 



118 IKELAjS^D. 

lips. Deirdre wondered, yet found a new delight 
and wonderment in the silence of Naisi, and the 
gloomy lightning in his eyes, as being the more con- 
trasted with herself, and therefore the more to be 
beloved. 

Yet the time came when Naisi determined to tell 
her all and risk the worst that fate could do against 
them, finding death with her greatly better than life 
without hero Yet death with her was not to be 
granted to him. Deirdre heard, wondering and 
trembling, and Naisi must tell her the tale many 
times before she understood, — so utter had been her 
solitude and so perfect was yet her ignorance of all 
things beyond the fort where she was captive, and 
of all the doings of men. Concobar was not even a 
name to her, and she knew nothing of his power or 
the stronghold of Emain, the armies of the Ulaid, or 
the tributes of gold and cattle and horses. Spears 
and swords and those who wielded them were not 
even dreams to her until the coming of Naisi, when 
his gloom blended with her sunshine. 

Talking long through the twilight, until the red 
gold of the west was dulled to bronze over the hills, 
and the bronze tarnished and darkened with the com- 
ing of the eastern stars^ they planned together what 



EMAIN OF MACA. 119 

they should do ; and, the heart of Deirdre at hist 
growing resolute, they made their way through the 
night to where the brothers of Naisi were, and all fled 
together towards the northern sea. Amongst the 
fishermen of the north they found those who were 
willing to carry them beyond the reach of Concobar's 
anger, and with a southerly breeze set sail for the 
distant headlands of Scotland, that they had seen 
from the cliff-top lying like blue clouds along the 
horizon. They set forth early in the morning, as 
the sun came up out of the east over blue Alban 
capes, and when the sun went down it reddened the 
dark rocks of Islay ; so that, making for the shore, 
they camped that night under the Islay Hills. On 
their setting forth again, the sea was like a wild 
grey lake between Jura on the left and the long head- 
land of Cantyre on their right ; and thus they sped 
forward between long ranks of gloomy hills, grow- 
ing ever nearer them on both sides, till they passed 
through the Sound of Jura and rounded into Loch 
Etive. 

There they made the land, drawing up under the 
shadow of dark hills, and there they dwelt for many 
a day. Very familiar to Deirdre, though at first 
strange and wild and terrible beyond words, grew 



120 IRELAND. 

that vast ampliitheatre of hills in their eternal gray- 
ness^ with the long Loch stretching down like a 
horn through their midst. Very familiar to inland- 
bred Deirdre^ though at first strange and fearful, 
grew the gray surges of the incoming tides, the 
white foam of the waves seething along boulders of 
granite, and the long arms of seaweed waving as 
she peered downward into the clear green water. 
Very familiar to Deirdre, though at first strange and 
confusing, grew the arms of Naisi around her in the 
darkness and his warm lips on her cheek. Happy 
were those wild days in the great glen of Etive, and 
dear did the sons of Usnac grow to her heart, loved 
as brothers by her who never knew a brother, or the 
gentleness of a mother's watching, or the solace of 
dear kindred. 

The sons of Usnac sped forth before dawn among 
the hills from their green dwelling roofed with pine 
branches and reeds and moss ; early they went forth 
to track the deer, pursuing them with their arrows, 
till the red flank of the buck was laced with brighter 
red. One of the three ever stayed behind with 
Deirdre, whether it was Naisi himself, or Alny, or 
Ardan, and the two thus remaining were like chil- 
dren playing together, whether gathering sticks and 



EMAIN OF MACA. 121 

dry rushes and long spears of withered grass for 
their fire, or wandering by the white curling waves, 
or sending flat pebbles skipping over the wavelets ; 
and the sound of their laughter many a time echoed 
along the Loch's green waters and up the hills, till 
the does peered and wondered from among the 
heather, and the heron, startled at his fishing, flew 
upwards croaking, with flapping wings. Happy were 
those days for Deirdre, and with utter sadness she 
looked back to them afterwards, when the doom fore- 
told had fallen upon her. Happy sped the days, till 
once in the gray of the dawn, while Deirdre was 
resting in their green refuge with Naisi, she cried 
out in her sleep and waked, telling him, weeping, that 
she had heard the voice of the bird of doom in her 
dreams. 

The voice she heard was indeed the voice of their 
doom ; yet it was a cheerful voice, full of friendly 
gladness ; the voice of Fergus, son of Roeg, former 
King of Emain, and now come to Loch Etive as mes- 
senger of Concobar. Fergus came up from the sea- 
beach towards the answering shout of the sons of 
Usnac, and glad greetings passed among them at the 
door of their refuge. Fergus looked long in admira- 
tion at the blue eyes and golden locks, the clear skin 



122 IKELAND. 

and gentle breast of Deirdre^ nor wondered, as he 
looked, that Naisi had dared fate to possess her. 
Then Fergus told the storj of his coming ; how they 
had discovered the flight of the sons of Usnac from 
Emain, and how terrible was the black anger of Con- 
cobar ; what passionate fire had gleamed in his 
eyes as he tossed the golden locks back from his 
shoulders and grasped the haft of his spear, and 
pledged himself to be avenged on Naisi and all his 
kin, swearing that he would have Deirdre back 
again. 

Thus Fergus told the tale, laughingly, as at a 
danger that was past, a storm-cloud that had lost its 
arrows of white hail and was no longer fearfid. 
For, he said, Concobar had forgotten his anger, had 
promised a truce to the sons of Usnac, and most of 
all to Naisi, and had bidden them return as his guests 
to Emain of Maca, where Deirdre should dwell 
happy with her beloved. The comrades of Fergus 
by this time had tied their boat and come up from 
the shore, and the sons of Usnac were ready to de- 
part. Yet Deirdre's heart misgave her as she 
thought of the days among those purple hills and 
granite rocks, by the long green water of the Loch, 
and her clear-seeing soul spoke words of doom for 



EMAIN OF MACA. 123 

them all : words soon to be fulfilled. Amongst the 
comrades of Fergus were certain of the adherents 
of Concobar, treacherous as he 5 for he had no 
thought of pardoning the sons of Usnac, nor any in- 
tent but to draw Deirdre back within his reach ; the 
image of her bright eyes and the redness of her lips, 
and her soft breast and shining hair was ever before 
him, and his heart gnawed within him for longing 
and the bitterness of desire. 

Therefore he had designed this embassy ; and 
Fergus, believing all things and trusting all things, 
had gladly undertaken to be the messenger of for- 
giveness ; fated, instead, to be the instrument of be- 
trayal. So they turned their faces homewards 
towards Emain, Deirdre full of desponding, as one 
whose day of grace is past. They set sail again 
through the long Sound of Jura, with the islands 
now on their right hand and the gray hills of Can- 
tyre on their left. So they passed Jura, and later 
Islay, and came at last under the cliffs of Rathlin 
and the white Antrim headlands. Deirdre's heart 
never lightened, nor did laughter play about her lips 
or in her eyes through all the time of her journey, 
but sadness lay ever upon her, like the heavy dark- 
ness of a winter's night, when a storm is gathering 



124 IRELAND. 

out of the West. But Fergus made merry ^ rejoic- 
ing at the reconciling ; bidden to a treacherous ban- 
quet by the partisans of Concobar, his heart never 
misgave him^ but giving the charge of Deirdre 
and the sons of Usnac to his sons, he went to the 
banquet, delaying long in carousing and singing, 
while Deirdre and the three brothers were car- 
ried southwards to Emain. There the treachery 
plotted against them was carried out, as they 
sat in the banquet-hall 5 for Concobar's men brought 
against them the power of cowardly flames, set- 
ting fire to the hall, and slaying the sons of Us- 
nac as they hurried forth from under the burning 
roof. 

One of the sons of Fergus shamefully betrayed 
them, bought by the gold and promises of Concobar, 
but the other bravely fell, fighting back to back with 
one of the sons of Usnac, when they fell overpow- 
ered by the warriors of Concobar. Thus was the 
doom of Deirdre consummated, her lover treacher- 
ously done to death, and she herself condemned to 
bear the hated caress of Concobar, thinking ever of 
those other lips, in the days of her joy among the 
northern hills. This is the lament of Deirdre for 
Usnac's sons : 



EM A IN OF MAC A. 125 

The lions of the hill are gone, 
And I am left alone, alone ; 
Dig the grave both wide and deep, 
For I am sick and fain would sleep ! 

The falcons of the wood are flown. 
And I am left alone, alone ; 
Dig the grave both deep and wide, 
And let us slumber side by side. 

Lay their spears and bucklers bright 
By the warriors' sides aright ; 
Many a day the three before me 
On their linked bucklers bore me. 

Dig the grave both wide and deep, 
Sick I am and fain would sleep. 
Dig the grave both deep and wide, 
And let us slumber side by side. 



CUCULAIN THE HERO. 



VI. 

CUCULAIN THE HERO. 
B.C. 50-A.D. 50. 

The treacherous death of Naisi and his brothers 
Ardan and Alny, and her own bereavement and 
misery, were not the end of the doom pronounced at 
her birth for Deirdre, but rather the beginning. Yet 
the burden of the evils that followed fell on Concobar 
and his Lands and his Avarriors. 

For Fergus, son of Roeg, former king over Emain, 
who had stayed behind his charges feasting and ban- 
queting, came presently to Emain, fearing nothing 
and thinking no evil, but still warm with the recon- 
ciliation that he had accompUshed ; and, coming to 
Emain of Maca, found the sons of Usnac dead, wdth 
the sods still soft on their graves, and his own son 
also dead, Deirdre in the hands of Concobar, and 
the plighted word of Fergus' and his generous pledge 
of safety most traitorously and basely broken; 
broken by Concobar, whom he himself had guarded 
and set upon the throne. 

Fergus changed from gladness to fierce wrath, and 

9 ( 1:29 ) 



130 IRELAND. 

his countenance was altered with anger^ as he uttered 
his bitter indignation against Concobar to the war- 
riors and heroes of Emain and the men of Ulad. 
The warriors were parted in two by his words, 
swaying to the right and to the left, as tall wheat 
sways before one who passes through it. For some 
of them sided with Fergus, saying that he had done 
great wrong to put Concobar on the throne, and that 
even now he should cast him down again, for the 
baseness and treachery of his deed ; but others 
took Concobar's part, saying that the first betraying 
was Naisi's, who stole away Deirdre, — the hostage, 
as it were, of evil doom, so that he drew the doom 
upon himself. They further said that Concobar was 
chief and ruler among them, the strong and master- 
ful leader, able to uphold their cause amongst men. 
So indeed it befell, for the sedition of Fergus and his 
fight to avenge his wrong upon Concobar failed, so 
that he fled defeated to Meave, Queen of Connacht, 
at her stronghold amid the lakes whence issues forth 
the Shannon. 

Meave, whose power and genius overtopped her 
lord Ailill, received the exiled king gladly, and put 
many honors upon him, holding him as the pillar of 
her army, with the two thousand men of the Ulaid 



iri0itei y€.o^.to> yri.a!s:it'''s Ca/i^ttsewaty" 



CUCULAIN THE HERO. 131 

who came with him ; — those who had fought for him 
against the party of Goncobar. At Cruacan^ on the 
liillside, with the hikes of the Great Eiver all aromid 
thenij with the sun setting red behind the Curlew 
hillsj with green meadows and beech-woods to glad- 
den them, Meave and Ailill kept their court, and 
thence they sent many forays against Emain of Maca 
and Goncobar, with Fergus the fallen king ever rag- 
ing in the van, and, for the wrong that was done 
him, working measureless wrong on his own king- 
dom and the kingdom of his fathers. 

After many a foray had gone forth against Ulad, 
crossing the level plains, it befell that Meave and 
Ailill her lord disputed between them as to which 
had the greatest wealth ; nor would either yield until 
their most precious possessions had been brought 
and matched the one against the other. Their 
jewels of gold, wonderfully wrought, and set Avith 
emeralds and beryls and red carbuncles, were brought 
forth, their crescents for the brow, with hammered 
tracery upon them, their necklets and torques, like 
twisted ribbons of gold, their bracelets and arm- 
rings set with gold, their gems of silver and all their 
adornments, cloaks of scarlet and blue and purple, 
were all brought, and no advantage in the one was 



132 lEELAND. 

found over the other. Their battle-steeds also were 
brought, their horses for chariots ; and likewise their 
herds of lowing wealth, their sheep with soft fleeces. 
When the cattle were driven up before them, it was 
found that among the herds of Ailill was one bull, 
matchless, with white horns shining and polished 5 
and equal to this bull was none among the herds of 
the queen. She would not admit her lord's advan- 
tage, but sent forthwith to seek where another bull 
like the bull of Ailill might be found, and tidings 
were brought to her of the broAvn bull of Cuailgne, 
— of Cuailgne named after a chief of the Sons of 
Milid, fallen ages ago in the pursuit of the De Da- 
naans, when the De Danaans retreated before the 
Sons of Milid from the southern headland of Slieve 
Misli to the ford at green Tailten by the Boyne, and 
thence further northwards to where Cuailgne of the 
Sons of Milid was killed. At that same place had 
grown up a dwelling with a fortress, and there was 
the brown bull that Meave heard the report of. She 
sent, therefore, and her embassy bore orders to Daire, 
the owner of the bull, asking that the bull might be 
sent to her for a year, and offering fifty heifers in 
payment. Daire received her messengers well, and 
willingly consented to her request 5 but the messen- 



CUCULAIN THE HERO. 133 

gers of Meave from feasting fell to drinking, from 
drinking to boasting ; one of them declaring that it 
was a small thing that Daire had granted the request, 
since they themselves would have compelled him, 
even unwillingly, and would have driven off the 
brown bull by force. The taunt stung Daire, after 
his hospitality, and in Avrath he sent them forth 
empty-handed, and so they came slighted to Meave. 

The queen, conceiving her honor impeached, would 
by no means suffer the matter so to rest, but stirred 
up wrath and dissension, till the armies of Connacht 
with their allies set forth to sack and burn in Ulad, 
and at all hazards to bring the brown bull. Fergus 
and the men who fought by his side went with them, 
and marching thus eastwards they came, after three 
days' march through fair lands and fertile, to the 
river Dee — the frontier of Ulad, and the scene of 
many well-fought fights. 

The army of Ulad was not yet ready to meet 
them, but one champion with his band confronted 
them at the ford. That champion was Cuculain, 
whose true name was Setanta, son of Sualtam, chief 
at Dundelga, and of Dectira the sister of Concobar. 
Cuculain was accounted the greatest and most skill- 
fid warrior of his time, and bards for ages after told 



134 lEELAND. 

how he kept the ford. For by the laws of honor 
amongst them^ the host from Connacht could not 
pass the ford so long as Ciiculain held the ford and 
offered single combat to the champions. They must 
take up his challenge one by one ; and while he 
stood there challenging, the host could not pass. 

Many of their champions fell there by the ford, so 
that queen Meave's heart chafed within her, and her 
army was hot to do battle, but still Cuculain kept 
the ford. Last of the western champions came forth 
Ferdiad, taught in the famous northern school of 
arms, a dear friend and companion of Cuculain, who 
now must meet him to slay or be slain. This is the 
story of their combat, as the traditions tell it : 

When they ceased fighting on the first day, they 
cast their weapons away from them into the hands 
of their charioteers. Each of them approached the 
other forthwith, and each put his hand round the 
other's neck, and gave him three kisses. Their 
horses were in the same paddock that night, and 
their charioteers at the same fire 5 and their chari- 
oteers spread beds of green rushes for them, with 
wounded men's pillows to ihem. The men of heal- 
ing came to heal and solace them, applying herbs 
that should assuage to every cut or gash upon their 



CUCULAIN THE HKRO. 135 

bodies, and to all their wounds. Of every liealing 
herb that was laid on the hurts of Cuculain, he sent 
an equal share to Ferdiad, sending it westward over 
the ford, so that men might not say that through the 
healing virtue of the herbs he was able to overcome 
him. And of all food and invigorating drink that 
was set before Ferdiad, he sent an equal portion 
northwards over the ford to Cuculain, for those that 
prepared food for him were more than those who 
made ready food for Cuculain. Thus that night they 
rested. 

They fought with spears on the next day, and so 
great was the strength of each, so dire their skill in 
combat, that both were grievously wounded, for all 
the protection of their shields. The men of healing 
art could do little for them beyond the staunching of 
their blood, that it might not flow from their wounds, 
laying herbs upon their red wounds. 

On the third day they arose early in the morning 
and came forward to the place of combat. Cuculain 
saw that the face of Ferdiad was dark as a black 
cloud, and thus addressed him : ^^ Thy face is dark- 
ened, Ferdiad, and thine eye has lost its fire, nor are 
the form and features thine !" And Ferdiad an- 
swered, ^^ O, Cuculain, it is not from fear or dread 



136 IKELAND. 

that my face is changed, for I am ready to meet all 
champions in the fight." Cuculain reproached him, 
wondering that, for the persuasions of Meave, Fer- 
diad was willing thus to fight against his friend, 
coming to spoil his land. But Ferdiad replied that 
fate compelled him, since every man is constrained 
to come unto the sod where shall be his last resting- 
place. That day the heroes fought with swords, 
but such was the skill of both that neither could 
break down the other's guard. 

In the dusk they cast away their weapons, ceas- 
ing from the fight ; and though the meeting of the 
two had been full of vigor and friendship in the 
morning, yet was their parting at night mournful 
and full of sorrow. That night their horses were 
not in the same enclosure, nor did their charioteers 
rest at the same fire. 

Then Ferdiad arose early in the morning and 
went forth to the place of contest, knowing well 
that that day would decide whether he should fall or 
Cuculain j knowing that the sun would set on one of 
them dead that night. Cuculain, seeing him come 
forth, spoke thus to his charioteer: ^' I see the might 
and skiU of Ferdiad, coming forth to the combat. 
If it be I that shall begin to yield to-day, do thou 



CUCULAIN THE HERO. 137 

stir my valor, uttering reproaches and words of 
condemnation against me, so that my wrath shall 
grow upon me, enkindling me again for the battle." 
And the charioteer assented and promised. 

Great was the deed that was performed that day 
at the ford by the two heroes, the two warriors, the 
two champions of western lands, the two gift-bestow- 
ing hands of the northwest of the world, the two 
beloved pillars of the valor of the Gael, the two 
keys of the bravery of the Gael, brought to fight 
from afar through the schemes of Meave the queen. 

They began to shoot with their missiles from the 
dawn of the day, from early morning till noon. 
And when midday came the ire of the men waxed 
more furious, and they drew nearer together. Then 
Cuculain sprang from the river-bank against the 
boss of the shield of Ferdiad, son of Daman, to 
strike at his head over the rim of the shield from 
above. But Ferdiad gave the shield so strong a 
turn with his left arm that he cast Cuculain from 
him like a bird. Cuculain sprang again upon him, 
to strike him from above. But the son of Daman 
so struck the shield with his left knee that he cast 
Cuculain from him like a child. 

Then the charioteer of Cuculain spoke to chide 



138 IRELAND. 

him : ^' Woe for thee, whom the warrior thus casts 
aside as an evil mother casts away her offspring. 
He throws thee as foam is thrown by the river. He 
grinds thee as a mill would grind fresh grain. He 
pierces thee as the ax of the woodman cleaves the 
oak. He binds thee as the woodbine binds the tree. 
He darts on thee as the hawk darts on finches, so 
that henceforth thou hast no claim or name or fame 
for valor, until thy life's end, thou phantom sprite !" 

Then Cuculain sprang up fleet as the wind and 
swift as the swallow, fierce as a dragon, strong as a 
lion, advancing against Ferdiad through clouds of 
dust, and forcing himself upon his shield, to strike at 
him from above. Yet even then Ferdiad shook him 
off, driving him backwards into the ford. 

Then Cuculain's countenance was changed, and 
his heart swelled and grew great within him till he 
towered demoniac and gigantic, rising like one of 
the Fomor upon Ferdiad. So fierce was the fight 
they now fought that their heads met above and 
their feet below and their arms in the midst, past 
the rims of the shields. So fierce was the fight they 
fought that they cleft the shields to their centers. 
So fierce was the fight they fought that their spears 
were shivered from socket to haft. So fierce was 



CUCULAIN THE HEKO. 139 

the fight they fought that the demons of the air 
screamed along the rims of the shields, and from the 
hilts of their swords and from the hafts of their 
spears. So fierce was the fight they fought that 
they cast the river out of its bed, so that not a drop 
of water lay there unless from the fierceness of the 
champion heroes hewing each other in the midst of 
the ford. So fierce was the fight they fought that 
the horses of the Gael fled away in fright, breaking 
their chains and their yokes, and the women and 
youths and camp-followers broke from the camp, 
flying forth southwards and westwards. 

They were fighting with the edges of their swords, 
and Ferdiad, finding a break in the guard of Cucu- 
lain, gave him a stroke of the straight-edged sword, 
burying it in his body until the blood fell into his 
girdle, until the ford was red with the blood of the 
hero's body. Then Cuculain thrust an unerring 
spear over the rim of the shield, and through the 
breast of Ferdiad's armor, so that the point of the 
spear pierced his heart and showed through his body. 

'^ That is enough, now," said Ferdiad : ^' I fall for 
that !" Then Cuculain ran towards him, and clasped 
his two arms about him, and bore him with his arms 
and armor across the ford northwards. Cuculain 



140 IRELAND. 

laid Ferdiad down there, bowing over his body in 
faintness and weakness. But the charioteer cried to 
him, '^ Rise up, Cuculain, for the host is coming 
upon us, and it is not single combat they will give 
thee, since Ferdiad, son of Daman, son of Daire, 
has fallen before thee !" 

^^ Friend," Cuculain made answer, " what avails it 
for me to rise after him that has fallen by me V^ 

Thus did Cuculain keep the ford, still known as 
the ford of Ferdiad, Ath-Fhirdia on the Dee, in the 
midst of the green plain of Louth. And while he 
fought at the ford of Ferdiad the army of Ulad 
assembled, and coming southwards over the hills 
before Emain, turned back the host of Meave the 
queen and pursued them. The army of Meave fled 
westwards and southwards towards Connacht, pass- 
ing the Yellow Ford of Athboy and the Hill of 
Ward, the place of sacrifice, where the fires on the 
Day of Spirits summoned the priests and Druids to 
the offering. Fleeing still westwards from the Yel- 
low Ford, they passed between the lakes of Owel 
and Ennel^ with the men of Ulad still hot in their 
rear. Thus came pursued and pursuers to Grairec, 
close by Athlone — the Ford of Luan — and the 
Dwooded shore of the great Lough Ree. There was 



CUCULAIN THE HERO. 141 

fought a battle hardly less fatal to victors than to 
vanquished, for though the hosts of Meave were 
routed, yet Concobar's men could not continue the 
pursuit. Thus Meave escaped and Fergus with her, 
and came to their great fort on the green hillside of 
Cruacan amid the headwaters of the Shannon. 

The victory of Concobar's men was like a defeat. 
There Avas not food that pleased him, nor did sleep 
come to him by night, so that the Ulad wondered, 
and Catbad the right-wonderful Druid, himself a 
warrior who had taught Concobar and reared him, 
went to Concobar to learn the secret of his trouble. 
Therefore Catbad asked of Concobar what wound 
had wounded him, what obstinate sickness had come 
upon him, making him faint and pale, day after 
day. 

" Great reason have I for it,'' aswered Concobar, 
^^ for the four great provinces of Erin have come 
against me, bringing with them their bards and 
singers, that their ravages and devastations might 
be recorded, and they have burned our fortresses 
and dwellings, and Ailill and Meave have gained a 
battle against me. Therefore I would be avenged 
upon Meave the queen." 

'^ Thou hast already avenged it sternly, O Red- 



142 IRELAND. 

handed Concobar," Catbad made answer, ^' by win- 
ning the battle over the four provinces of Erin.'' 

^' That is no battle/' Concobar answered, '^ where 
a strong king falls not by hard fighting and by fury. 
That an army should escape from a goodly battle ! 
Unless Ailill should fall, and Meave, by me in this 
encounter with valorous hosts, I tell you that my 
heart will break, Catbad !" 

^"^ This is my counsel for thee," replied Catbad, 
'^ to stay for the present. For the winds are rough, 
and the roads are foul, and the streams and the rivers 
are in flood, and the hands of the warriors are busy 
making forts and strongholds among strangers. So 
wait till the summer days come upon us, till every 
grassy sod is a pillow, till our horses are full of spirit 
and our colts are strong, till our men are whole of 
their wounds and hurts, till the nights are short to 
watch and to ward and to guard in the land of ene- 
mies and in the territories of strangers. Spring is 
not the time for an invasion. But meanwhile let 
tidings be sent to thy friends in absence^ in the 
islands and throughout the northern seas.'^ 

Therefore messengers were sent with the tidings, 
and the friends in absence of Concobar were sum- 
moned. They set forth with ships from the islands 



CUCULAIN THE HERO. 143 

of the northern seas, and came forward with the tide 
to the Cantyre headland. The green surges of 
the tremendous sea rose about them, and a mighty 
storm rose against them. Such was the strength of 
the storm that the fleet was parted in three. A 
third of them, with the son of Amargin, came under 
the cliffs of Fair Head, to the Bay of Murbolg, where 
huge columns tower upward on the face of the cliff, 
high as the nests of the eagles ; cliffs ruddy and 
mighty, frowning tremendous across the channel to 
Cantyre and Islay and far-away Jura. A third of 
the ships came to the safer harbor of Larne, where 
bands of white seam the cliff's redness, where the 
great headland is thrust forth northwards, sheltering 
the bay from the eastern waves. A third of the fleet 
came to the strand beside Dundelga, hard by the 
great hiU of earth where was reared the stronghold 
of Cuculain. 

At that same time came Concobar with a thousand 
men to the fort of Cuculain, and feasting was pre- 
pared for him at the House of Delga. Nor was Con- 
cobar long there till he saw the bent spars of sails 
and the full-crewed ships, and the scarlet pavilions, 
and the many-colored banners, and the blue bright 
lances, and the weapons of war. Then Concobar 



144 IRELAND. 

called on the chiefs that were about him^ for the ter- 
ritory and land he had bestowed upon them, and for 
the jewels he had given them, to stand firm and 
faithful. For he knew not whether the ships were 
ships of his foes, of the Gralian of Lagin, now called 
Leinster, or the Munstermen of great Muma, or the 
men of Olnemact, called afterwards Connacht 5 for 
the estuary of the river and the strand were full of 
men. 

Then Senca son of Ailill answered for the chief- 
tains : " I give my word, indeed, that Erin holds 
not a soldier who lays his hand in the hand of a 
chieftain that is not known to me. If they be the 
men of Erin thy foes that are there, I shall ask a 
truce of battle from them ; but if they be thy friends 
and allies, thou shalt the more rejoice." 

Then Senca son of Ailill went forward to the place 
where the ships were, and learned that they were 
the friends in absence of Concobar, come to be his 
allies against the four provinces of Erin. Then 
Concobar spoke to Cuculain : 

^^ Well, Cuculain, let the horses of the plain of 
Murtemni be caught by thee ; let four-wheeled 
chariots be harnessed for them ; bring with them 
hither my friends from the ships in chariots and 



Gtay Man^s Path^ Faif Head 



CUCULAIN THE HERO. 145 

four-wheeled cars, that feasting and enjoyment may 
be prepared for them." 

They were brought in chariots to the feast, and 
carvers carved for them, and serving-men carried 
the cups of mead. Songs were sung to them, and 
they tarried there till sunrise on the morrow. Then 
Concobar spoke again to Cuculain : 

^'It is well, Cuculain. Let messengers now be 
sent through the lands of the Ulaid to the warriors 
of the Ulaid, that the foreign friends may be min- 
istered to by them also, while I make my camp here 
by the river. And bid the thrice fifty veteran 
champions come hither to me, that I may have their 
aid and counsel in battle." 

But Cuculain would not. Therefore Concobar 
went himself to summon the veterans. When they 
asked the cause of his coming, Concobar answered, 
'^Have you not heard how the four provinces of 
Erin came against us, bringing with them their 
bards and singers, that their ravages and devasta- 
tions might the better be recorded, and burning and 
plundering our fortresses and dwellings 1 Therefore 
I would make an expedition of hostility against 
them, and with your guidance and counsel would I 

make the expedition." 

10 



146 lEELAND. 

" Let our old steeds be caught by thee/^ they an- 
swered, " and let our old chariots be yoked by thee, 
so that we may go on this journey and expedition 
with thee." Then their old chargers were caught, 
and their old chariots yoked, so that they too came 
to the camp at the Water of Luachan. 

This was told to the four provinces. The Three 
Waves of Erin thundered in the night ; the Wave 
of Clidna at Glandore in the South ; the Wave of 
Rudraige along the bent-carpeted sand-hills of Dun- 
drum, under the Mountains of Mourne j and the 
Wave of Tuag Inbir, at the bar of northern Bann. 
For these are the Three Waves of Fate in Erin. 
Then the four provinces hosted their men. The son 
of Lucta, the north Munster king, assembled his 
tribes at the Hill of Luchra, between the Shannon 
mouth and the Summit of Prospects. Ailill and 
Meave hosted the men of the west at Cruacan. 
Find, son of Ros, king over the Galian of Leinster, 
gathered his army at Dinn-Rig by the Barrow. 
Cairpre Nia Fer assembled his host about him at 
Tara, in the valley of the Boyne. 

This was the proposal of Eocu, son of Lucta, king 
of north Munster by the Shannon : That everything 
should have its payment, and that reparation should 



CUCULAIN THE HERO. 147 

be made to Concobar for the invasion ; that a fort 
should be paid for every fort, for every house a 
house, for every cow a cow, for every bull a bull ; 
that the great brown bull should be sent back, that 
the breadth of the face of the bull in red gold should 
be given to Concobar, and that there should be no 
more hostility among the men of Erin. 

This was reported to Meave, but the queen an- 
swered, " A false hand was his who gave this coun- 
sel. For so long as there shall be among us one 
who can hold a sword, who can wear the shield- 
strap about his neck, that proposal shall not go to 
him." 

^^ Thy counsel is not mine," replied Ailill, " for not 
greater shall be our part of that payment than the 
part of all the four provinces who went on that raid 
for the bull." Therefore Meave consented, and mes- 
sengers were sent, and came to Tara by the Boyne, 
where were Find, son of Ros, king of Leinster, and 
his brother Cairpre Nia For, king of Tara. Thence 
they sent messengers to treat with Concobar, but 
Concobar rejected the terms. '^ I give my Avord, 
indeed," answered Concobar, " that I Avill not take 
terms from you till my tent has been pitched in every 
province of Erin." 



148 IRELAND. 

'^ Grood, Concobar/^ they replied ; " where wilt 
thou now make thy encampment to-night V^ 

" In the Headland of the Kings, by the clear 
bright Boyne," answered Concobar, for Concobar 
concealed not ever from his enemy the place in which 
he would take station or camp, that they might not 
say that it was fear or dread that caused him not to 
say it. Concobar, therefore, marched toward the 
Headland of the Kings, across the Boyne to the 
southward, and facing the northern bank where are 
the pyramids of the Dagda Mor and the De Danaans. 
But the southern armies were there already, so Con- 
cobar halted before the river. Then were their 
positions fixed and their pavilions pitched, their huts 
and their tents were made. Their fires were kin- 
dled, cooking and food and drink were prepared; 
baths of clean bathing were made by them, and 
their hair was smooth-combed ; their bodies were 
minutely cleansed, supper and food were eaten by 
them ; and tunes and merry songs and eulogies were 
sung by them. 

Then Concobar sent men to reconnoitre the south- 
ern and western armies. Two went and returned 
not, falling indeed into the hands of the foe. It 
seemed long to Concobar that the two were gone. 



CUCULAIN THE HERO. 149 

He spoke, therefore, to his kmsman : " Good indeed, 
Irgalac, son of Macclac, son of Congal, son of Rud- 
raige, sayest thou who is proper to go to estimate 
and to reconnoitre the army ?" 

" Who should go there," answered Irgalac, '^ but 
Iriel good at arms, great-kneed son of Conall Cer- 
nac. He is a Conall for havoc, a Cuculain for dex- 
terity of feats. He is a Catbad, a right-wonderful 
Druid, for inteUigence and counsel, he is a Senca 
son of Ailill for peace and for good speech, he is a 
Celtcair son of Utecar for valor, he is a Concobar 
son of Factna Fatac for kingliness and wide-eyed- 
ness, for giving of treasures and of wealth and of 
riches. Who but Iriel should go ?" 

Therefore Iriel went forward : standing on the 
pyramid of the Dagda, he began measuring and re- 
connoitering the army. His spirit, or his mind, or 
his thoughts did not fret over them at all. He 
brought their description with him to the place in 
which Concobar was. 

'^ How, my life, Iriel !" said Concobar. '^ I give 
my word truly," said Iriel ; ^^ it seems to me that 
there is not ford on river, or stone on hill, nor higli- 
way nor road in the territory of Breg or Mide, that 
is not full of their horse-teams and of their servants. 



150 lEELAND. 

It seems to me that their apparel and their gear and 
their garments are the blaze of a royal house from 
the plain." 

" Good; Ulaid," said Concobar^ " what is your 
advice to us for the battle V ^^ Our advice is/^ said 
the Ulaidj "to wait till our strong men and our 
leaders and our commanders and our supporters of 
battle come." Not long was their waiting, and not 
great was their stay, till they saw three chariot- 
warriors approaching them^ and a band of twelve 
hundred along with each rider of them. It is these 
that were there — three of the goodly men of science 
of the Ulaid, to wit, Catbad the right-wonderful 
Druid; and Aiterni the Importunate, and Amargin 
the man of science and art. After them came other 
valiant leaders with troops. Then Concobar arose 
and took his gear of battle and of conflict and of 
combat about him, saying, " Why should we not 
give battle ?" 

A third of the army of the Ulaid rose with him, 
too. And they went over the river Boyne. And the 
other armies arose against them as they were cross- 
ing the river. And each of them took to hacking 
and to cutting down the other, destroying and wound- 
ing till there was no similitude of the Ulaid at that 



CUCULAIN THE HERO. 151 

point of time, unless it were a huge sturdy oakwood 
in the middle of the plain, and a great army were to 
go close to it, and the slender and the small of the 
wood were cut off, but its huge sturdy oaks were left 
behind. Thus their young were cut off, and none 
but their champions and their battle-warriors and 
their good heroes of valor were left. 

The shield of Concobar was struck so that it 
moaned, and the three Waves of Erin, the Wave of 
Clidna, the Wave of Rudraige, and the Wave of 
Tuag Inbir echoed that moan, and all the shields of 
the Ulaid resounded, every one of them that was on 
their shoulders and in their chariots. As the Ulaid 
were retreating, fresh troops came up for them under 
Conall Cernac. A tree of shelter and a wreath of 
laurel and a hand above them was Conall to them. 
So their flight was stayed. Then Conall drew the 
sharp long sword out of its sheath of war and played 
the music of his sword on the armies. The ring of 
Conall's sword was heard through the battalions on 
both sides. And when they heard the music of 
Conall's sword their hearts quaked and their eyes 
fluttered and their faces whitened, and each of them 
withdrew back into his place of battle and of combat. 
But so fierce was the onset of the southern armies 



152 lEELAND. 

that the fight of the Ulaid against them was as a 
breast against a great flood, or an arrow against the 
rock, or the striking of a head against cliffs. Yet 
through the great might of Cuculain the Ulaid pre- 
vailed, and Cairpre the King of Tara was slain. 
After the battle, Concobar spoke thus : " There were 
three sons of Ros Ruad the king — Find in Alend, 
Ailill in Cruac, Cairpre in Tara 5 together thej per- 
formed their deeds of valor, the three brothers in 
every strife ; together they used to give their battle. 
They were three pillars of gold about their hills, 
abiding in strength j great is their loss since the 
third son has fallen.'' 



FIND AND OSSIN. 



VII. 

FIND AND OSSIN. 

A.D. 200-290. 

Seventeen centuries ago, two hundred summers 
after the death of Cucukin the hero, came the great 
and wonderful time of Find the son of Cumal, Ossin 
the son of Find, and Find's grandson Oscur. It was 
a period of growth and efflorescence ; the spirit and 
imaginative powers of the people burst forth with the 
freshness of the prime. The life of the land was 
more united, coming to a national consciousness. 

The five kingdoms were now clearly defined, with 
Meath, in the central plain, predominant over the 
others, and in a certain sense ruling all Ireland from 
the Hill of Tara. The code of honor was fixed; 
justice had taken well-defined forms 5 social life had 
ripened to genial urbanity. The warriors Avere gath- 
ered together into something like a regular army, a 
power rivaling the kings. Of this army. Find, son 
of Cumal, was the most renowned leader — a warrior 
and a poet, who embodied in himself the very genius 

of the time, its fresh naturalness, its ripeness, its 

(155) 



156 IRELAND. 

imagination. No better symbol of the spirit of his 
age could be found than Find's own '' Ode to 
Spring " : 

'' May-day ! delightful time ! How beautiful the 
color ! The blackbirds sing their full lay. Would 
that Laigay were here ! The cuckoos call in con- 
stant strains. How welcome is ever the noble bright- 
ness of the season. On the margin of the leafy pools 
the summer swallows skim the stream. Swift horses 
seek the pools. The heath spreads out its long hair. 
The white^ gentle cotton-grass grows. The sea is 
lulled to rest. Flowers cover the earth." 

Find's large and imaginative personality is well 
drawn in one of the poems of his golden-tongued 
son Ossin, though much of the beauty of Ossin's 
form is lost in the change of tongue : 

' ' Six thousand gallant men of war 

We sought the rath o'er Badamar ; 

To the king's palace home we bent ■ 

Our way. His bidden guests we went. 
'Twas Clocar Fair, 
And Find was there, 
The Fians from the hills around 
Had gathered to the race-course ground. 

From valley deep and wooded glen 

Fair Munster sent its mighty men,; 

And Fiaca, Owen's son, the king, 



FIND AND OSSIN. 157 

Was there the contest witnessing. 

'Twas gallant sport ! With what delight 

Leaped thousand pulses at the sight. 

How all hearts bound 

As to the ground 
First are brought forth the Fian steeds, 
Then those from Luimnea's sunny meada 
Three heats on Mac Mareda's green 
They run ; and foremost still is seen 
Dill Mac Decreca's coal-black steed. 
At Crag-Lochgur he takes the lead. 

''His is the day— and, lo ! the king 
The coal-black steed soliciting 
From Dill the Druid !— ' Take for it 
A hundred beeves ; for it is fit 
The black horse should be mine to pay 
Find for his deeds of many a day.' 

"Then spoke the Druid, answering 
His grandson, Fiaca the king : 
' Take ray blessing ; take the steed. 
For the hero's fitting meed : 
Give it for thy honor's sake.' 
And to Find the King thus spake ; 

'"Hero, take the swift black steed, 
Of thy valor fitting meed ; 
And my car, in battle-raid 
Gazed on by the foe with fear ; 
And a seemly steed for thy charioteer. 
Chieftain, be this good sword thine. 
Purchased with a hundred kine, 
In thine hand be it our aid. 



158 lEELAND. 

Take this spear, whose point the breath 

Of venomed words has armed with death, 

And the silver-orbed shield, 

Sunbeam of the battlefield ! 

And take with thee 

My grayhounds three, 

Slender and tall. 

Bright -spotted all, 

Take them with thee, chieftain bold, 

With their chainlets light 

Of the silver white. 

And their neck-rings of the tawny gold. 

Slight not thou our offering, 

Son of Cumal, mighty king !' 

''Uprose Find our chieftain bold, 
Stood before the Fian ranks, 
To the king spoke gracious thanks. 
Took the gifts the monarch gave ; 
Then each to each these champions brave 
Glorious sight to see and tell, — 
Spoke their soldier-like farewell ! 

"The way before us Find led then ; 
We followed him, six thousand men, 
From out the Fair, six thousand brave, 
To Caicer s house of Cloon-na-Dave. 

''Three nights, three days, did all of us 
Keep joyous feast in Caicer' s house ; 
Fifty rings of the yellow gold 
To Caicer Mac Caroll our chieftain told ; 
As many cows and horses gave 
To Caicer Mac Caroll our chieftain brave. 



FIND AND OSSIN. 159 

Well did Find of Innisfail 

Pay the price of his food and ale. 

**Find rode o'er the Luacra, joyous man, 
Till he reached the strand at Barriman ; 
At the lake where the foam on the billow's top 
Leaps white, did Find and the Fians stop. 

** 'Twas then that our chieftain rode and ran 
Along the strand of Barriman ; 
Trying the speed 
Of his swift black steed, — 
Who now but Find was a happy man? 

** Myself and Cailte at each side, 
In wantonness of youthful pride, 
Would ride with him where he might ride. 
Fast and furious rode he, 
Urging his steed to far Tralee. 
On from Tralee by Lerg duv-glass, 
And o'er Fraegmoy, o'er Finnass, 
O'er Moydeo, o'er Monaken, 
On to Shan-iber, o'er Shan-glen, 
Till the clear stream of Flesk we win, 
And reach the pillar of Crofinn ; 
O'er Sru-Muny, o'er Moneket, 
And where the fisher spreads his net 
To snare the salmon of Lemaln, 
And thence to where our coursers' feet 
Wake the glad echoes of Loch Leane; 
And thus fled he, 
Nor slow were we ; 
Through rough and smooth our course we strain. 



160 lEELAND. 

" Long and swift our stride, — more fleet 
Than the deer of the mountain our coursers' feet ! 
Away to Flesk by Camwood dun ; 
And past Mac Scalve's Mangerton, 
Till Find reached Barnec Hill at last ; 
There rested he, and then we passed 
Up the high hill before him, and : 
' Is there no hunting hut at hand ?' 
He thus addressed us ; ' The daylight 
Is gone, and shelter for the night 
We lack. ' He scarce had ended, when 
Gazing adown the rocky glen, 
On the left hand. Just opposite, 
He saw a house with its fire lit ; 
' That house till now I' ve never seen, 
Though many a time and oft I've been 
In this wild glen. Come, look at it !' 

" ' Yes, there are things that our poor wit 
Knows little of,' said Cailte ; ' thus 
This may be some miraculous 
Hostel we see, whose generous blaze 
Thy hospitality repays. 
Large-handed son of Cumal !' — So 
On to the house all three we go. ..." 

Of their entry to the mysterious house, of the 
ogre and the witch they found there, of the horrors 
that gathered on all sides, when 

" From iron benches on the right 
Nine headless bodies rose to sight, 
And on the left, from grim repose. 
Nine heads that had no bodies rose, ..." 



FIND AND OSSIN. 161 

Ossin likewise tells, and how, overcome, they fell at 
last into a deathlike trance and stupor, till the sun- 
light woke them lying on the heathery hillside, the 
house utterly vanished away. 

The scenes of all the happenings in the story are 
well known : the rath of Badamar is near Caher on 
the Suir, in the midst of the Golden Vale, a plain of 
wonderful richness and beauty, walled in by the red 
precipices of the Galtee Mountains, and the Knock- 
Mealdown Hills. From the rath of Badamar Find 
could watch the western mountains reddening and 
glowing in front of the dawn, as the sun-rays shot 
level over the burnished plain. Clocar is thirty miles 
westward over the Golden Vale, near where Croom 
now stands 5 and here were run the races; here 
Find gained the gift of the coal-black steed. It is 
some forty miles still westwards to the Strand of 
Tralee ; the last half of the way among hills carpeted 
with heather ; and the Strand itself, with the tide 
out, leaves a splendid level of white sand as far as 
the eye can reach, tempting Find to try his famous 
courser. The race carried them southwards some 
fifteen miles to the beautiful waters of Lough Leane, 
with its overhanging wooded hills, the Lake of Kil- 

larney, southward of which rises the huge red mass 

11 



162 IKELAND. 

of Mangerton^ in the midst of a country everywhere 
rich in beauty. The Hill of Barnec is close by^ but 
the site of the magic dwelling, who can tell ? Per- 
haps Find; or Cailte, or golden-tongued Ossin 
himself. 

There was abundant fighting in those days, for 
well within memory wa^ the time of Conn of the 
Five-score Fights, against whom Cumal had warred 
because Conn lord of Connacht had raised Crimtan 
of the Yellow Hair to the kingship of Leinster. 
Cumal fought at the Rath that bears his name, now 
softened to Rathcool, twelve miles inward from the 
sea at Dublin, with the hills rising up from the plain 
to the south of the Rath. Cumal fought and fell, 
slain by Goll Mac Morna, and enmity long endured 
between Find and GoU who slew his sire. But like 
valiant men they were reconciled, and when Goll in 
his turn died. Find made a stirring poem on GolFs 
mighty deeds. 

Another fateful fight for Find was the battle of 
Kinvarra, among the southern rocks of Galway Bay 5 
for though he broke through the host of his foeman 
Uince, that chieftain himself escaped, and, riding 
swiftly with a score of men, came to Find's own 
dwelling at Druim Dean on the Red Hills of Leinster, 



FIND AND OSSIN. 163 

and burned the dwelling, leaving it a smoldering 
ruin. Find pursuing, overtook them, slaying them 
at the ford called to this day Ath-uince, the ford of 
Uince. Returning homewards, Find found his 
house desolate, and the song he sang still holds the 
memory of his sorrow. 

Two poems he made, on the Plain of Swans and 
on Roirend in Offaly, full of vivid pictures and 
legends ; and one of romantic tragedy, telling how 
the two daughters of King Tuatal Tectmar Avere 
treacherously slain, through the malice of the 
Leinster king. But of romances and songs of fair ^ 
women in the days of Find, the best is the Poem of 
Gael, who composed it to win a princess for his bride. 
Of fair Crede of the Yellow Hair it was said that 
there was scarce a gem in all Erin that she had not 
got as a love-token, but that she would give her 
heart to none. Crede had vowed that she would 
marry the man who made the best verses on her 
home, a richly-adorned dwelling in the south, under 
the twin cones of the Paps, and within sight of Lough 
Leane and Killarney. Gael took up the challenge, and 
invoking the Genius that dwelt in the sacred pyramid 
of Brugh on the Boyne he made these verses, and 
came to recite them to yellow-haired Grede : 



164 IKELAND. 

' ' It would be happy for me to be in her home, 
Among her soft and downy couches, 
Should Crede deign to hear me ; 
Happy for me would be my journey. 

A bowl she has, whence berry -juice flows, 
With which she colors her eyebrows black ; 
She has clear vessels of fermenting ale ; 
Cups she has, and beautiful goblets. 

The color of her house is white like lime ; 
Within it are couches and green rushes ; 
Within it are silks and blue mantles ; 
Within it are red gold and crystal cups. 

Of its sunny chamber the corner stones 
Are all of silver and yellow gold, 
Its roof in stripes of faultless order 
Of wings of brown and crimson red. 

Two doorposts of green I see, 
Nor is the door devoid of beauty ; 
Of carved silver, — long has it been renowned, — 
Is the lintel that is over the door. 

Crede' s chair is on your right-hand. 
The pleasantest of the pleasant it is ; 
All over a blaze of Alpine gold. 
At the foot of her beautiful couch . . , 

The household which is in her house 
To the happiest fate has been destined ; 
Grey and glossy are their garments ; 
Twisted and fair is their flowing hair. 

Wounded men would sink in sleep, 
Though ever so heavily teeming with blood. 
With the warbling of the fairy birds 
From the eaves of her sunny summer-room. 

If I am blessed with the lady's grace, 



Colleen Bawn Cavcs^ Killarney 



FIND AND OSiSIN. 165 

Fair Cred^ for whom the cuckoo sings, 

In songs of praise shall ever live, 

If she but repay me for my gift. . . . 

There is a vat of royal bronze, 
Whence flows the pleasant juice of malt ; 
An apple-tree stands over the vat, 
Willi abundance of weighty fruit. 

When Crede's goblet is filled 
With the ale of the noble vat, 
There drop down into the cup forthwith 
Four apples at the same time. 

The four attendants that have been named, 
Arise and go to the distributing. 
They present to four of the guests around 
A drink to each man and an apple. 

She who possesses all these things, 
With the strand and the stream that flow by them, 
Crede of the three-pointed hill, 
Is a spear-cast beyond the women of Erin. 

Here is a poem for her, — no mean gift. 
It is not a hasty, rash composition ; 
To Crede now it is here presented : 
May my journey be brightness to her !" 

Tradition says that tho heart of the yellow-haired 
beauty was utterly softened and won, so that she de- 
layed not to make Gael master of the dwelling he so 
well celebrated ; master, perhaps, of all the jewels of 
Erin that her suitors had given her. Yet their 
young love was not destined to meet the storms and 
frosts of the years ; for Gael the gallant fell in battle, 



166 IRELAND. 

his melodious lips for ever stilled. Thus have these 
two become immortal in song. 
^ We have seen Cailte with Ossin following Find in 
his wild ride through the mountains of Killarney, and 
to Cailte is attributed the saying that echoes down 
the ages : " There are things that our poor wit 
knows nothing off!" Cailte was a great lover of the 
supernatural^ yet there w^as in him also a vein of sen- 
timent^ shown in his poem on the death of Clidna — 
'^ CUdna the fair-haired, long to be remembered/' 
who w^as tragically drowned at Glandore harbor in 
the south, and whose sad wraith still moans upon the 
bar, in hours of fate for the people of Erin. 

In a gayer vein is the poem of Fergus the Elo- 
quent, who sang the legend of Tipra Seangarmna, 
the Fountain of the Feale River, which flows w^est- 
ward to the sea from the mountains north of Killar- 
ney. The river rises among precipices, gloomy 
caverns and ravines, and passes through vales full 
of mysterious echoes amid mist-shrouded hills. 
There, as Fergus sings, were Ossin and his following 
hunting, when certain ominous fair women lured 
them to a cave, — women who were but insubstantial 
wraiths, — to hold them captive till the seasons ran 
full circle, summer giving place again to winter and 



FIND AND OSSIN. 167 

spring. But Ossin, being himself of more than 
human wisdom, found a way to trick the spirits ; for 
daily he cut chips from his spear and sent them float- 
ing down the spring, till Find at last saw them, and 
knew the tokens as Ossin's, and, coming, delivered 
his son from durance among ghosts. 

The great romantic theme of the time binds the 
name of Find, son of Cumal, with that of Cormac, 
son of Art, and grandson of Conn of the Five-score 
Battles. This Cormac was himself a notable man 
of wisdom, and here are some of the Precepts he 
taught to Cairbre, his son : 

" O grandson of Conn, Cormac," Cairbre asked 
him, " what is good for a king f 

'' This is plain," answered Cormac. " It is good 
for him to have patience and not to dispute, self- 
government without anger, affability without haughti- 
ness, diUgent attention to history, strict observance 
of covenants and agreements, justice tempered by 
mercy in the execution of the laws. It is good 
for him to make fertile land, to invite ships, to import 
jewels of price from across the sea, to purchase and 
distribute raiment, to keep vigorous swordsmen who 
may protect his territory, to make war beyond his 
territory, to attend to the sick, to discipline his sol- 



168 IRELAND. 

diers. Let him enforce fear^ let him perfect peace, 
let him give mead and wine, let him pronounce just 
judgments of light, let him speak all truth, for it is 
through the truth of a king that Grod gives favorable 
seasons.'^ 

" O grandson of Conn, O Cormac,^' Cairbre again 
asked him, ^^what is good for the welfare of a 
country V^ 

'^ This is plain," answered Cormac. " Frequent 
assemblies of wise and good men to investigate its 
affairs, to abolish every evil and retain every whole- 
some institution, to attend to the precepts of the 
seniors ; let every assembly be convened according 
to the law, let the law be in the hands of the noblest, 
let the chieftains be upright and unwilling to oppress 
the poor." 

" O grandson of Conn, O Cormac," again asked 
Cairbre, '^ what are duties of a prince in the ban- 
queting-house ?" 

^' A prince on the Day of Spirits should light his 
lamps and welcome his guests with clapping of 
hands, offering comfortable seats j the cup-bearers 
should be active in distributing meat and drink. 
Let there be moderation of music, short stories, a 
welcoming countenance, a greeting for the learned. 



FIND AND OSSIN. 169 

pleasant conversation. These are the duties of a 
prince and the arrangement of a banqiieting-house." 

'^ O grandson of Conn, O Cormac, for what quali- 
fications is a king elected over countries and tribes 
of people V 

" From the goodness of his shape and family, 
from his experience and wisdom, from his prudence 
and magnanimity, from his eloquence and bravery in 
battle, and from the number of his friends." 

" grandson of Conn, Cormac, what was thy 
deportment when a youth ?" 

^' I was cheerful at the banquet of the House of 
Mead, I was fierce in battle, but vigilant and care- 
ful. I was kind to friends, a physician to the sick, 
merciful to the weak, stern toward the headstrong. 
Though possessed of knowledge, I loved silence. 
Though strong, I was not overbearing. Though 
young, I mocked not the old. Though valiant, I 
was not vain. When I spoke of one absent I 
praised and blamed him not, for by conduct like this 
are we known to be courteous and refined." 

" grandson of Conn, O Cormac, what is good 
for me ?" 

^' If thou attend to my command, thou wilt not 
scorn the old though thou art young, nor the poor 



170 lEELAND. 

though thou art well clad, nor the lame though thou 
art swift, nor the blind though thou seest, nor the 
weak though thou art strong, nor the ignorant though 
thou art wise. Be not slothful, be not passionate, be 
not greedy, be not idle, be not jealous j for he who 
is so is hateful to God and man." 

^^ O grandson of Conn, Cormac, I would know 
how to hold myself with the wise and the foolish, 
with friends and strangers, with old and young." 

^^ Be not too knowing or simple, too proud or in- 
active, too humble or haughty, talkative or too silent, 
timid or too severe. For if thou art too knowing, 
thou wilt be mocked at and abused 5 if too simple, 
thou wilt be deceived ; if proud, thou wilt be 
shunned ; if too humble, thou wilt suffer ; if talka- 
tive, thou wilt be thought foolish ; if too severe, men 
will speak ill of thee ; if timid, thy rights will 
suffer." 

" grandson of Conn, Cormac, how shall I 
discern the characters of women ?" 

^' I know them, but I cannot describe them. Their 
counsel is foolish, they are forgetful of love, most 
headstrong in their desires, fond of folly, prone to 
enter rashly into engagements, given to swearing, 
proud to be asked in marriage, tenacious of enmity. 



FIND AND OSSIN. 171 

cheerless at the banquet, rejectors of reconciliation^ 
prone to strife, of much garrulity. Until evil be 
good, until hell be heaven, until the sun hide liis 
light, until the stars of heaven fall, women will re- 
main as we have declared. Woe to him, my son, 
who desires or serves a bad woman, woe to him who 
has a bad wife.'' 

Was there some thought of his daughter Grania 
in Cormac's mind, behind these keen-edged words ? 
— of Grania, beloved of Diarmuid ? When the 
winters of the years were already white on Find, 
son of Cumal, when Ossin his son had a son of his 
own, Oscur the valiant, the two old men, Cormac the 
king and Find leader of the warriors, bethought them 
to make a match between Find and Grania, one of 
the famous beauties of the olden time. A banquet 
was set in the great House of Mead, and Find and 
his men were there, Diarmuid son of Duibne being 
also there, best beloved among Find's warriors. 
There was a custom, much in honor among the chief- 
tains, that a princess should send her goblet to the 
guests, offering it to each with gentle courtesy. This 
grace fell to the lady Grania, whose whole heart rose 
up against her grey-bearded lover, and was indeed 
set on Diarmuid the son of Duibne. Grania com- 



172 IRELAND. 

pounded a dreamy draught to mix with the mead^ so 
that all the chieftains and warriors^ with Cormac and 
Find himself, even while praising the drink, fell 
straightway a-nodding, and were soon in silent sleep, 
all except Ossin and Diarmuid, whom Grania had 
bidden not to drink. 

Then Grania, her voice all tremulous with tears, 
told to Ossin the fate that awaited her, looking at 
him, but speaking for Diarmuid ; bewailing bitterly 
the misery of fair youth in the arms of withered eld, 
and at last turning and openly begging Diarmuid to 
save her from her fate. To carry away a king's 
daughter, betrothed to the leader of the warriors, 
was a perilous thing, and Diarmuid's heart stood still 
at the thought of it ; yet Grrania's tears prevailed, 
and they two fled forth that night to the hills and 
forests. Dire and ruinous was the wrath of Cormac 
and of Find when they awoke and found that these 
two were fled ; and whatever might was in the king's 
hand, whatever power in the hosts of Find, was 
straightway turned against them in pursuit. Yet 
the two fled as the deer might fly, visiting with their 
loves every wood and valley in Erin, till the memory 
of them lingers throughout all the hills. Finally, 
after a year's joyful and fearsome fleeing, the Fian 



FIND AND OSSIN. 173 

warriors everywhere aiding them for love of Diar- 
inuid, swift death came upon Diarmuid, and Grania 
was left desolate. 

But Angus the Ever- Young, guardian Genius of 
the pyramid-shrine of Brugh by the Boyne, De 
Danaan dweller in the secret house, Angus of the 
Immortals received the spirit of Diarmuid, opening 
for him the ways of the hidden world. 

But enmity grew between Find with his warriors 
and Cormac the king, till at last a battle was fought 
where Find's men fell, and Cairbre, the well-in- 
structed son of Cormac also fell. Thus passed away 
the ruling spirits of that age, the flowering time of 
the genius of Erin. 



THE MESSENGER OF THE NEW WAY. 



VIIT. 

THE MESSENGER OF THE NEW WAY. 
A.D. 410-493. 

The valor of Fergus and Cuculain, the rich imag- 
inative life of Find and Ossin, were the flower of 
heroic centuries. Strong men had fought for gen- 
erations before Concobar reigned at Emain of Maca. 
Poets had sung their deeds of valor, and the loves 
of fair women, and the magical beauty of the world, 
through hardly changing ages. The heroes of fame 
were but the best fruit in the garden of the nation's 
life. So ripe was that life, more than two thousand 
years ago, that it is hard to say what they did not 
know, of the things which make for amenity and 
comity. The colors of the picture are everywhere 
rich, yet perfectly harmonized. 

The earliest forms of Irish writing seem to have 
come from the Baltic runes, and these, in their turn, 
from an old Greek script of twenty-five hundred 
years ago. The runes spread as far as the Orkneys, 
and there they were well within the horizon of Ire- 
land's knowledge. Nothing would be more natural 

12 (177) 



178 IRELAND. 

than the keeping of written records in Erin for three 
or four hundred years before Cuculain's birth, nine- 
teen hundred years ago. 

The arts of life were very perfect ; the gold-work 
of that time is unsurpassed — has never been sur- 
passed. At a far earlier time there were beautifully 
moulded and decorated gold-bronze spears, that show 
what richness of feeling and imagination, what just 
taste and fine skill were there. All our knowledge 
goes to show that the suitor of Crede has drawn a 
true picture of her house and the generous social life 
belonging to it. We know, too, that the great din- 
ing-hall of Tara has been faithfully celebrated by the 
bards 5 the picture of the king in his scarlet cloak is 
representative of the whole epoch, 
jx The story of Crede also shows the freedom and 
honor accorded to women, as does the queenship of 
Meave, with the record of her separate riches. The 
tragedies of Deirdre and Grania would never have 
been remembered, had not the freedom and high 
regard of women been universal. Such decorative 
skill as is shown in the metal-work and pottery that 
have come down to us must have borne fruit in 
every realm of social life, in embroideries, tapestries, 
well-designed and beautifully adorned homes. Music 



THE MESSENGER OF THE NEW WAY. 179 

is everywhere spoken of in the old traditions, and 
the skill of the poets we can judge for ourselves. 

In all that concerns the natural man, therefore, a 
very high perfection had been reached. A frame of 
life had grown habitual, Avhich brought out the finest 
vigor and strength and beauty. Romantic love added 
its riches to valor, and dignity was given by the ever- 
present memory of the heroic past, merging on the 
horizon with the divine dawn of the world. Man- 
hood and womanhood had come to perfect flower. 
The crown rested on the brow of the nation's life. 

When the life of the natural man is perfected, the 
time comes to strike the note of the immortal, to 
open the door of our real and enduring destiny. 
Sensual success, the ideal of unregenerate man, was 
perfectly realized in Concobar and ten thousand like 
him. The destiny of triumphant individual life, the 
strong man victorious over nature and other men, was 
fulfilled. Individual prowess, individual accomplish- 
ment, could go no further. 

Nor should we overlook the dark shadows of the 
picture. Glory is to the victor, but woe to the van- 
quished. The continual warfare between tribe and 
tribe, between chief and chief, which made every 
valley a home of warriors dominated by a rath-fort- 



180 IRELAND. 

ress^ bore abundant fruits of evil. Death in battle 
need not be reckoned, or may be counted as pure 
gain J but the fate of the wounded, maimed and 
miserable, the destitution of women and children 
left behind, the worse fate of the captives, sold as 
they were into exile and slavery, — all these must be 
included in the total. 

Nor are these material losses the worst. The 
great evil of the epoch of tribal war is its reaction 
on the human spirit. The continual struggle of 
ambition draws forth egotism, the desire to dominate 
for mere domination, the sense of separation and 
antagonism between man and man, tribe and tribe, 
province and province. 

But our real human life begins only when these 
evil tendencies are abated 5 when we learn to watch 
the life of others as if it were our own, — as being 
indeed a part of our own life, — and in every act and 
motion of our minds do only that which shall be to 
the best advantage of both ourselves and our neigh- 
bor. For only thus, only by the incessant practice 
of this in imagination and act, can the door of our 
wider and more humane consciousness be opened. 

Nor is this all. There are in us vast unexplored 
tracts of power and wisdom * tracts not properly be- 



Rums on Scattety Istan<i 



THE MESSENGER OF THE NEW WAY. 181 

longing to our personal and material selves, but 
rather to the impersonal and universal consciousness 
which touches us from within, and which Ave call 
divine. Our personal fate is closed by death ; but 
we have a larger destiny which death does not touch •, 
a destiny enduring and immortal. The door to this 
larger destiny can only be opened after we have laid 
down the weapons of egotism ; after we have become 
veritably humane. There must be a death to mili- 
tant self-assertion, a new birth to wide and universal 
purposes, before this larger life can be understood 
and known. 

With all the valor and rich life of the days of 
Cuculain and Ossin, the destructive instinct of an- 
tagonism was very deeply rooted in all hearts ; it did 
endless harm to the larger interests of the land, and 
laid Ireland open to attack from without. Because 
the genius of the race was strong and highly devel- 
opedj the harm went all the deeper 5 even now, after 
centuries, it is not wholly gone. 

, The message of the humane and the divine, taught 
among the Galilean hills and on the shores of Geit- 
nesaret, was after four centuries brought to Ireland — 
a word of new life to the warriors and chieftains, 
enkindling and transforming their heroic world. 



182 IRELAND. 

Britain had received the message before, for Britain 
was d part of the dominion of Rome, which already 
had its imperial converts. Roman life and culture 
and knowledge of the Latin tongue had spread 
throughout the island up to the northern barrier be- 
tween the Forth and Clyde. Beyond this w^as a 
wilderness of warring tribes. 

Where the Clyde comes forth from the plain to the 
long estuary of the sea, the Messenger of the Tidings 
was born. His father, Calpurn, was a Roman patri- 
cian ; from this his son, whose personal name was 
Succat, was surnamed Patricius, a title raised by his 
greatness into a personal name. His letters give us 
a vivid picture of his captivity, and the stress of life 
wdiich gradually aroused in him the inspiration of the 
humane and divine ripened later into a full knowl- 
edge of his apostolate. 

"I Patricius, a sinner," he writes, ^^ and most un- 
learned of believers, looked down upon by many, had 
for my father the deacon Calpurn, son of the elder 
Potitus, of a place called Bannova in Tabernia, near 
to which was his country home. There I was taken 
captive, when not quite sixteen. I knew not the 
Eternal. Being led into captivity with thousands of 
others, I was brought to Ireland, — a fate well de- 



THE MESSENGER OF THE NEW WAY. 183 

served. For we had turned from the Eternal, nor 
kept the laws of the Eternal. Nor had we heeded 
the teachers who urged us to seek safety. Therefore 
the Eternal, justly wroth, scattered us among unbe- 
lievers, to the uttermost parts of the earth ; here, 
where my poor worth is now seen among strangers, 
where the Eternal liberated the power hid in my un- 
enkindled heart, that even though late I should 
recognize my error, and turn with all my heart to 
the Eternal. . . . 

'^ I have long had it in mind to write, but until 
now have hesitated ; for I feared blame, because I 
had not studied law and the sacred writings, — as 
have others who have never changed their language, 
but gone on to perfection in it ; but my speech is 
translated into another language, and the roughness 
of my writing shows how little I have been taught. 
As the Sage says, ^ Show by thy speech thy wisdom 
and knowledge and learning.' But what profits this 
excuse I since all can see how in my old age I strug- 
gle after what I should have learned as a boy. For 
then my sinfulness hindered me. I was but a beard- 
less boy when I was taken captive, not knowing what 
to do and what to avoid ; therefore I am ashamed to 
show my ignorance now, because I never learned to 



184 JKELAND. 

express great matters succinctly and well ; — great 
matters like the moving of the soul and mind by the 
Divine Breath. . . . Nor^ indeed^ was I worthy that 
the Master should so greatly favor me^ after all my 
hard labor and heavy toil, and the years of captivity 
amongst this people, — that the Master should show me 
such graciousness as I never knew nor hoped for till 
I came to Ireland. 

^^ But daily herding cattle here, and aspiring many 
times a day, the fear of the Eternal grew daily in 
me. A divine dread and aspiration grew in me, 
so that I often prayed a hundred times a day, 
and as many times in the night. I often remained 
in the woods and on the hills, rising to pray while 
it was yet dark, in snow or frost or rain 5 yet I 
took no harm. The Breath of the Divine burned 
within me, so that nothing remained in me unen- 
kindled. 

"^ One night, while I was sleeping, I heard a voice 
saying to me, ^ You have fasted well, and soon you 
shall see your home and your native land.' Soon 
after, I heard the voice again, saying, ^ The ship is 
ready for you.' But the ship was not near, but two 
hundred miles off, in a district I had never visited, 
and where I knew no one. Therefore I fled, leaving 



THE MESSENGER OF THE NEW WAY. 185 

tlie master I had served for six years, and found the 
ship by divine guidance, going without fear. . . . 

" We reached the land after three days' sail ; then 
for twenty-eight days we wandered through a wilder- 
ness. . . . Once more, after years of exile, I was at 
home again with my kindred, among the Britons. 
All welcomed me like a son, earnestly begging me 
that, after the great dangers I had passed through, I 
would never again leave my home. 

^^ While I was at home, in a vision of the niglit 1 
saw one who seemed to come from Ireland, bringing 
innumerable letters. He gave me one of the letters, 
in which I read, ^ The voices of the Irish . . . ;' and 
while I read, it seemed to me that I heard the cry 
of the dwellers by the forest of Foclut, by the West- 
ern Ocean, calling with one voice to me, ^ Come and 
dwell with us !' My heart was so moved that I 
awoke, and I give thanks to my God who after many 
years has given to them according to their petition. 

^' On another night, whether within me or without 
me I know not, God knows. One prayed with very 
wonderful Avords that I could not comprehend, till at 
last He said, ' It is He who gave His soul for you, 
that speaks !' I awoke for joy. And once in a 
vision I saw Him praying within me, as it were j I 



186 IKELAND. 

saw myselfj as it were^ within myself; and I heard 
Him praying urgently and strongly over the inner 
man ; I being meanwhile astonished^ and wondering 
who thus prayed within me, till at the end He de- 
clared that I should be an overseer for Him. . . . 

''I had not believed in the living Divine from 
childhood, but had remained in the realm of death 
until hunger and nakedness and daily slavery in Ire- 
land — for I came there as a captive — had so afflicted 
me that I almost broke down. Yet these things 
brought good, for through that daily suffering I was 
so changed that I work and toil now for the well- 
being of others, I who formerly took no care even 
for myself. . . . 

'^ Therefore I thank Him who kept me faithful in 
the day of trial, that I live to offer myself daily as a 
living offering to Him who saves and guards me. 
Well may I say, ^ Master, what am I, what is my 
calling, that such grace and divine help are given to 
me — that I am every day raised to greater power 
among these unbelievers, while I everywhere praise 
thy name ? Whatever comes to me, whether happi- 
ness or misery, whether good or evil fortune, I hold 
it all the same ; giving Thee equal thanks for it, be- 
cause Thou hast unveiled for me the One, sure and 



THE MESSENGER OF THE NEW WAY. 187 

unchanging, in whom I may for ever believe. So 
that in these latter days, even though I am ignorant, 
I may dare to undertake so righteous a work, and so 
wonderful, that makes me like those who, according 
to His promise, should carry His message to all peo- 
ple before the end of the world. 

^' It were long in whole or even in part to tell of 
my labours, or how the all-powerful One many times 
set me free from bondage, and from twelve perils 
wherein my life was in danger, and from nameless 
pitfalls. It were ill to try the reader too far, when I 
have within me the Author himself, who knows all 
things even before they happen, as He knows me, 
His poor disciple. The voice that so often guides 
me is divine ; and thence it is that wisdom has come 
to me, who had no wisdom, knowing not Him, nor 
the number of my days : thence comes my knowl- 
edge and heart's joy in His great and healing gift, 
for the sake of which I willingly left my home and 
kindred, though they offered me many gifts with tears 
and sorrow. 

" Many of the older people also disapproved, but 
through divine help I would not give way. It was no 
grace of mine, but the divine power in me that stood 
out against all, so that I came to bear the Message 



188 lEELAND. 

here among the people of Ireland^ suffering the scorn 
of those who believed not^ and bearing derision and 
many persecutions^ and even chains. Nay^ I even 
lost my patrician rank for the good of others. But 
if I be worthy to do something for the Divine, I am 
ready with all my heart to yield service, even to the 
deathj since it has been permitted that through me 
many might be reborn to the divine, and that others 
might be appointed to teach them. . . . 

" The people of Ireland, who formerly had only 
their idols and pagan ritual, not knowing the Master, 
have now become His children. The sons of the 
Scoti and their kings' daughters are now become sons 
of the Master and handmaidens of the Anointed. 
And one nobly born lady among them, a beautiful 
woman whom I baptized myself, came soon after to 
tell me that she was divinely admonished to live 
in maidenhood, drawing nearer to Him. Six days 
later she entered the grade that all the handmaidens 
of the Anointed desire, though their fathers and 
mothers would hinder them, reproaching and afflict- 
ing them 5 nevertheless, they grow in number, so 
that I know not how many they are, besides widows 
and continent women, who suffer most from those 
who hold them in bondage. Yet they stand firm, 



THE MESSENGER OF THE NEW WAY. 189 

and God grants grace to many of them worthily to 
follow Him. 

" Therefore I might even leave them, to go among 
the Britons, — for willingly would I see my own kin- 
dred and my native land again, or even go as far as 
Gaul to visit my brothers, and see the faces of my 
Master's holy men. But I am bound in the Spirit, 
and would be unfaithful if I went. Nor would 1 
willingly risk the fruit of all my work. Yet it is not 
I who decide, but the Master, who bid me come 
hither, to spend my whole life in serving, as indeed 
I think I shall. ... 

^^ Therefore I should ever thank Him who was so 
tolerant of my ignorance and sluggishness, so many 
times ; treating me not in anger but as a fellow- 
worker, though I was slow to learn the work set for 
me by the Spirit. He pitied me amongst many thou- 
sands, for he saw that I was very willing, but did net 
know how to offer my testimony. For they all op- 
posed my mission, and talked behind my back, say- 
ing, ' He wishes to risk his life among enemies who 
know nothing of the Master ' ; not speaking mali- 
ciously, but opposing me because I was so ignorant. 
Xor did I myself at once perceive the power that was 
in me. . . , 



190 IKELAND. 

^' Thus simply^ brothers and fellow-workers for the 
Master, who with me have believed, I have told you 
how it happened that I preached and still preach, to 
strengthen and confirm you in aspiration, hoping that 
we may all rise yet higher. Let that be my reward, 
as ^ the wise son is the glory of his father.^ You 
know, and the Master knows, how from my youth I 
have lived among you, in aspiration and truth and 
with single heart j that I have declared the faith to 
those among whom I dwell, and still declare it. The 
Master knows that I have deceived no man in 
anything, nor ever shall, for His sake and His 
people's. Nor shall I ever arouse uncharity in them 
or in any, lest His name should be spoken evil of. . . . 

'^ I have striven in my poor way to help my 
brothers and the handmaidens of the Anointed, and 
the holy women who often volunteered to give me 
presents and to lay their jewels on my altar ; but 
these I always gave back to them, even though they 
were hurt by it ; and I have so lived my life, for the 
hope of the life eternal, that none may find the least 
cause of offence in my ministry ; that my least act 
might not tarnish my good name, so that unbelievers 
might speak evil of me. ... 

^' If I have asked of any as much as the value of 



THE MESSENGER OF THE NEW WAY. 191 

a shoe, tell me. I will repay it and more. I rather 
spent my own wealth on you and among you, wher- 
ever I went, for your sakes, through many dangers, 
to regions where no believer had ever come to bap- 
tize, to ordain teachers or to confirm the flock. AVith 
the divine help I very willingly and lovingly paid all. 
Sometimes I gave presents to the kings, — in giving 
presents to their sons who convoyed us, to guard us 
against being taken captive. Once they sought to 
kill me, but my time was not yet come. But they 
took away all we possessed, and kept me bound, till 
the Master liberated me on the fourteenth day, and 
all our goods were given back, because of the Mas- 
ter and of those who convoyed us. You yourselves 
know what gifts I gave to those who administer 
the law through the districts I visited oftenest. I 
think I spent not less than the fine of fifteen men 
among them, in order that I might come among you. 
Nor do I regret it, nor count it enough, for I still 
spend, and shall ever spend, happy if the Master 
allows me to spend my soul for you. . . . For I know 
certainly that poverty and plain living are better for 
me than riches and luxury. The Anointed our 
Master was poor for us. I am poorer still, for I could 
not have wealth if I wished it. Nor do I now judge 



192 IRELAND. 

myself, for I look forward daily to a violent death, or 
to be taken captive and sold into slavery, or some like 
end. But I fear none of these . . . but let me not 
lose the flock I feed for Him, here in the uttermost 
parts of the earth. . . . 

'^ I am willing for His sake to shed my blood, to 
go without burial, even though my body be torn by 
dogs and wild beasts and the fowls of the air ; for I 
know that thus I should through my body enrich my 
soul. And I know that in that day we shall arise in 
the brightness of the sun, in the glory of the An- 
ointed Master, as sons of the divine and co-heirs 
with Him, made in His likeness. For the sun we 
see rises daily by divine ordinance 5 but it is not or- 
dained to rise for ever, nor shall its light last for 
ever. The sun of this world shall fade, with those 
that worship it 5 but we bow to the spiritual Sun, the 
Anointed, that shall never perish, nor they who do 
His will, but shall endure for ever like the Anointed 
himself, who reigns with the Father and the Divine 
Spirit now and ever. . . . 

^^ This I beg, that no believer or servant of the 
Master, who reads or receives this writing, which I, 
Patricius, a sinner and very unlearned, wrote in Ire- 
land, — I beg that none may say that whatever is good 



THE MESSENGER OF THE NEW WAY. 193 

in it was dictated by my ignorance, but rather that it 
came from Him. This is my Confession, before I 
die." 

That is the story of the most vital event in the 
life of Ireland, in the words of the man who was 
chiefly instrumental in bringing it about. Though 
an unskilled writer, as he says himself, he has never- 
theless succeeded in breathing into every part of his 
epistle the power and greatness of his soul, the sense 
and vivid reality of the divine breath which stirred 
in him and transformed him, the spiritual power, 
humane and universal, which enkindled him from 
within ; these are the words of a man who had first- 
hand knowledge of the things of our deeper life ; 
not a mere servant of tradition, living on the words 
and convictions of other men. He has drawn in 
large and universal outline the death to egotism — 
reached in his case through hunger, nakedness and 
slavery — and the new birth from above, the divine 
Soul enkindling the inner man, and Avakening him 
to new powers and a knowledge of his genius and 
immortal destiny. 

Not less vivid is the sense he conveyed, of the 

world in which he moved ; the feeling of his dignity 

as a Roman Patrician, having a share of the great- 

13 



194 IKELAND. 

ness of empire ; the sense of a dividing-line between 
the Christian realms of Rome and the outer bar- 
barians yet in darkness. Yet the picture he gives 
of these outer realms is as certainly true. There 
are the rival chieftains, each with his own tribe and 
his own fortj and bearing the title of king. They 
are perpetually striving among themselves, so that 
from the province of one he must move to the prov- 
ince of another with an escort, led by the king's son, 
who receives gifts in return for this protection. This 
is the world of Concobar and Cuculain ; of Find and 
Ossin, as they themselves have painted it. 

The world of Find and Ossin, of Gael and Crede, 
was marked by a certain urbanity and freedom, a 
large-mindedness and imaginative power. We are 
therefore prepared to expect that the Messenger of 
the new life would be received with openness of 
mind, and allowed to deliver his message without any 
very violent opposition. It was the meeting of un- 
armed moral power and armed valor ; and the victory 
of the apostle was a victory of spiritual force, of 
character, of large-heartedness ; the man himself was 
the embodiment of his message, and through his 
forceful genius his message was eifective. He vis- 
ibly represented the New Way ; the way of the 



THE MESSENGER OF THE NEW WAY. 195 

humane and the divine, transforming the destructive 
instinct of self-assertion. He visibly represented 
the divine and the immortal in us, the new birth 
from above. 

Yet there were tragedies in his apostolate. In an- 
other letter a very vivid and pathetic account is 
given of one of these. Coroticus, a chieftain of 
Britain, and therefore nominally a Christian and a 
citizen of Rome, had sent marauding bands to Ire- 
land to capture slaves. Some of the new converts 
were taken captive by these slave-hunters, an outrage 
which drew forth an indignant protest from the great 
Messenger : 

'' My neophytes in their white robes, the baptismal 
chrism still wet and glistening on their foreheads, were 
taken captive with the sword by these murderers. 
The next day I sent letters begging them to liberate 
the baptized captives, but they answered my prayer 
with mocking laughter. I know not which I should 
mourn for more, — those who were slain, those who 
were taken prisoner, or those who iu this were 
Satan's instruments, since these must suffer ever- 
lasting punishment in perdition." 

He appeals indignantly to the fellow-Christians of 
Coroticus ill Britain : " I pray you, all that are 



196 IRELAND. 

righteous and humble, to hold no converse with those 
who do these things. Eat not, drink not with them, 
accept no gifts from them, until they have repented 
and made atonement, setting free these newly-bap- 
tized handmaidens of Christ, for whom He died. . . . 
They seem to think we are not children of one 
Father !" 
< The work and mission of this great man grow 
daily better known. The scenes of each marked 
event are certainly identified. His early slavery, 
his time of probation, was spent in Antrim, on the 
hillside of Slieve Mish, and in the woods that then 
covered its flanks and valleys. Wandering there 
with his flocks to the hill-top, he looked down over 
the green darkness of the woods, with the fertile 
open country stretching park-like beyond, to the 
coast eight miles away. From his lonely sunimit he 
could gaze over the silvery grayness of the sea, and 
trace on the distant horizon the headlands of his dear 
native land. The exile's heart must have ached to 
look at them, as he thought of his hunger and naked- 
ness and toil. There in deep pity came home to him 
the fate of the weak ones of the earth, the van- 
quished, the afflicted, the losers in the race. Com- 
passion showed him the better way, the way of sym- 



THE MESSENGER OF THE NEW WAY. 197 

patliy and uniorij instead of contest and dominion. 
A firm and fixed purpose grew up within him to 
make the appeal of gentleness to the chiefs and 
rulers, in tlie name of Him who was all sympathy 
for the weak. Thus the inspiration of the Message 
awakened his soul to its immortal powers. 

Later, returning with tlie clear purpose of his 
message formed, he began his great work not far 
from his first place of captivity. His strong person- 
ality led him always to the jDresence of the chiefs 
and warriors, and he talked to them freely as an 
equal, gradually giving them an insight into his own 
vision of life, of the kinship between soul and soul, 
of our immortal power and inheritance. He ap- 
pealed always to his own inner knowledge of things 
divine, to the light and power unveiled within him- 
self; and the commanding genius in his words lit a 
like fire in the hearts of those who heard, awaken- 
ing an enthusiasm for the New Way. "^ He had a 
constant sense of his divine mission : 

'^ Was it without divine promise, or in the body 
only, that I came to Ireland f Who led me f Who 
took captive my soul, that I should no more see 
friends and kindred ? Whence came my inspiration 
of pity for the race that had enslaved me V^ 



198 lEELAND. 

The memory of his first victories is perpetuated 
in the name^ Downpatrick, — that is : the Dwelling 
of Patrick. — where Dicu son of Tricem, chief of 
the district^ gave him a tract of land to build a place 
of meeting and prayer for his disciples 5 while the 
church was being built, the chief offered his barn as 
a meeting-place, an incident commemorated in the 
name of Saul, on a hill above the town, — a name 
softened from Sabal, " a barn." This first victory 
was won among the rounded hills south of the Quoyle 
Eiver, where it widens toward Strangford Lough ; 
from the hill-top of Saul there is a wide prospect 
over the reed-covered flats with the river winding 
among them, the hills with their oak-woods in the 
bends of the river, and the widening lough with its 
innumerable islands^ its sand-flats lit up with red 
under the dawn. The sun sets among the mountains 
of Mourne, flushing from behind the purple profile 
of the hills, and sending golden arrows over the rich 
fertility of the plain. The year 432 is the probable 
date of this first conversion. 
tL The strong genius of the Messenger carried him 
after a few months to the center of power in the 
land, to Tara with its fortresses, its earthworks, its 
great banquet-halls and granaries and well-adorned 



THE mp:ssenger of the new way. 199 

dwellings of chief and king. A huge oval earth- 
work defended the king's house ; northward of this 
was the splendid House of Mead, — the banquet-hall, 
with lesser fortresses bejond it. Southward of the 
central dwelling and its defence was the new ringed 
fort of Laogaire the king, son of the more famous 
king Nial of the Hostages. At this circular fort, 
Rath-Laogaire, on Easter day. Saint Patrick met the 
king face to f^ice, and delivered to him the message 
of the New Wav, telling him of the unveiling of the 
Divine within himself, of the voice that had bidden 
him come, of the large soul of immortal pity that 
breathed in the teachings among the hills of Galilee, 
of the new life there begun for the world. Tradition 
says that the coming of the Messenger had been 
foretold by the Druids, and the great work he should 
accomplish 5 the wise men of the West catching the 
inner brightness of the Light, as the Eastern Magi- 
ans had caught it more than four centuries before. 
The fruits of that day's teaching in the plain of Tara, 
in the assembly of Laogaire the king, were to be 
gathered through long centuries to come. 

In the year 444, the work of the teacher had so 
thriven that he was able to build a larger church on 
a hill above the Callan River, in the undulating 



200 IKELAND. 

country south of Lough Neagh. This hill, called in 
the old days the Hill of the Willows, was only two 
miles from the famous fortress of Emain of Maca. 
It was a gift from the ruler Daire, who, like so many 
other chiefs, had felt and acknowledged the Messen- 
ger's power. Later, the hill came to be called Ard- 
Maca, the Height of Maca ; a name now softened 
into Armagh, ever since esteemed the central strong- 
hold of the first Messenger's followers. 

The Messenger passed on from chief to chief, 
from province to province, meeting with success 
everywhere, yet facing grave perils. Later his- 
tories take him to the kings of Leinster and Munster, 
and he himself tells us that the prayer of the chil- 
dren of Foclut was answered by his coming, so that 
he must have reached the western ocean. It was a 
tremendous victory of moral force, of the divine 
and immortal working through him, that the Mes- 
senger was able to move unarmed among the war- 
riors of many tribes that were often at war with 
each other j everywhere meeting the chiefs and 
kings, and meeting them as an equal : the unarmed 
bringer of good tidings confronting the king in the 
midst of his warriors, and winning him to his better 
vision. 



THE MESSENGER OF THE NEW WAY. 201 

For sixty years the Messenger worked, sowing 
seed and gathering the fruit of his labor ; and at last 
his body Avas laid at rest close to his first church at 
Saul. Thus one of the great men of the world ac- 
complished his task. 



THE SAINTS AND SCHOLARS. 



IX. 

THE SAINTS AND SCHOLARS. 
A.D. 493-750. 

It would be hard, to find in the whole history of 
early Christianity a record of greater and more en- 
during success than the work of St. Patrick. None 
of the Messengers of the New Way, as they were 
called first by St. Luke, unless the phrase is St. 
Paul's, accomplished single-handed so wonderful a 
work, conquering so large a territory, and leaving 
such enduring monuments of his victory. Amongst 
the world's masters, the son of Calpurn the Decurion 
deserves a place with the greatest. 

Not less noteworthy than the Avide range of his 
work was the way in which he gained success. He 
addressed himself always to the chiefs, the kings, the 
men of personal weight and power. And his ad- 
dress was almost invariably successful, — a tiling that 
would have been impossible had he not been himself 
a personality of singular force and fire, able to meet 
the great ones of the land as an equal. His manner 

was that of an ambassador, full of tact, knowledge 

( 205) 



206 IRELAND. 

of men and of the world. Nor can we find in him 
— or, indeed, in the whole history of the churches 
founded by him — anything of that bitter zeal and 
fanaticism which, nearly two centuries nearer to 
apostolic times, marred the work of the Councils un- 
der Constantius 5 the fierce animosity between Chris- 
tian and Christian which marked the Arian contro- 
versy. The Apostle of Ireland showed far more 
urbanity, far more humane and liberal wisdom, far 
more gentleness, humor and good feeling, in his 
treatment of the pre-Christian institutions and ideals 
of Ireland than warring Christian sects have gener- 
ally been willing to show to each other. 

It was doubtless due to this urbane wisdom that 
the history of the conversion of Ireland is without 
one story of martyrdom. The change was carried 
out in open-hearted frankness and good-will, the old 
order giving place to the new as gently as spring 
changes to summer. The most marvelous example 
of St. Patrick's wisdom, and at the same time the 
most wonderful testimony to his personal force, is his 
action towards the existing civil and religious law of 
the country, commonly known as the Brehon Law. 
Principles had by long usage been wrought into the 
fabric of the Brehon Laws which were in fiat contra- 



THE SAINTS AND SCHOLARS. 207 

diction to St. Patrick^s teaching of the New Way. 
Instead of fiercely denouncing the whole system, he 
talked with the chief jurists and heralds, — custodians 
of the old system, — and convinced them that changes 
in their laws would give effect to more humane and 
liberal principles. They admitted the justice of his 
view, and agreed to a meeting between three great 
chieftains or kings, three Brehons or jurists, and 
three of St. Patrick^s converts, to revise the whole 
system of law, substituting the more humane princi- 
ples, which they had already accepted as just and 
right. These changes were made and universally 
applied ; so that, without any violent revolution, 
without strife or bloodshed, the better way became 
the accepted law. It would be hard to find in all 
history a finer example of wisdom and moderation, 
of the great and worthy way of accomplishing right 
ends. 

We have seen the great Messenger himself found- 
ing monasteries, houses of religious study, and 
churches for his converts, on land given to him by 
chieftains who were moved by his character and 
ideals. We can judge of the immediate spread of 
his teaching if we remember that these churches were 
generally sixty feet long, thus giving room for many 



208 IRELAND. 

worshippers. They seem to have been built of stone 
— almost the first use of that material in Ireland since 
the archaic days. Among the first churches of this 
type were those at Saul^ at Donaghpatrick on the 
Blackwater, and at Armagh, with others further from 
the central region of St. Patrick's work. The 
schools of learning which grew up beside them 
were universally esteemed and protected, and from 
them came successive generations of men and women 
who worthily carried on the work so wisely begun. 
The tongues first studied were Latin and Irish. 
We have works of very early periods in both, as, 
for instance, the Latin epistles of St. Patrick him- 
self, and the Irish poems of the hardly less eminent 
Colum Kill. But other languages were presently 
added. 

These schools and churches gradually made their 
way throughout the whole country j some of the 
oldest of them are still to be seen, as at Donaghpat- 
rick, Clonmacnoise and Glendalough. Roofed with 
stone, they are well fitted to resist the waste of time. 
An intense spiritual and moral life inspired the stu- 
dents, a life rich also in purely intellectual and artistic 
force. The ancient churches speak for themselves ; 
the artistic spirit of the time is splendidly embodied 



Valley of Glendalough 
&nd Rtiims of the Srren Obtttcfics 



THE SAINTS AND SCHOLAKS. 209 

in the famous Latin manuscript of the Gospels, 
called the Book of Kells, the most beautiful speci- 
men of illumination in the Avorld. The wonderful 
colored initial letters reproduce and develop the 
designs of the old gold work, the motives of which 
came, it would seem, from the Baltic, with the De 
Danaan tribes. We can judge of the quiet and 
security of the early disciples at Kells, the comfort 
and amenity of their daily life, the spirit of comity and 
good- will, the purity of inspiration of that early time, 
by the artistic truth and beauty of these illuminated 
pages and the perfection with which the work was 
done. Refined and difficult arts are the evidence of 
refined feeling, abundant moral and spiritual force, 
and a certain material security and ease surrounding 
the artist. When these arts are freely offered in the 
service of religion, they are further evidence of wide- 
spread fervor and aspiration, a high and worthy ideal 
of life. 

Yet we shall be quite wrong if we imagine an era 
of peace and security following the epoch of the first 
great Messenger. Nothing is further from the truth. 
The old tribal strife continued for long centuries ; the 
instincts which inspired it are, even now, not quite 

outworn. Chief continued to war against chief, prov- 

li 



210 lEELAND. 

irice against province, tribe against tribe, even among 
the fervent converts of the first teachers. 

Saint Brigid is one of the great figures in the 
epoch immediately succeeding the first coming of the 
Word. She was the foundress of a school of religious 
teaching for women at Kildare, or Killdara, " The 
Church of the Oak-woods/' whose name still records 
her work. Her work, her genius^ her power, the im- 
mense spiritual influence for good which flowed from 
her, entitle her to be remembered with the women 
of apostolic times, who devoted their whole lives to 
the service of the divine. We have seen the esteem 
in which women were always held in Ireland. St. 
Brigid and those who followed in her steps gave effect 
to that high estimation, and turned it to a more spir- 
itual quality, so that now, as in all past centuries, the 
ideal of womanly purity is higher in Ireland than in 
any country in the world. 

This great soul departed from earthly life in the 
year 525, a generation after the death of the first 
Messenger. To show how the old order continued 
with the new, we may record the words of the Chron- 
icler for the following year : " 526 : The battle of 
Eiblinne, by Muirceartac son of Ere 5 the battle of 
Mag-Ailbe ; the battle of Almain ; the battle of 



THE SAINTS AND SCHOLARS. 211 

Ceann-eic ; the plundering of the Cliacs ; and the 
battle of Eidne against the men of Connacht." 
Three of these battles were fought at no great dis- 
tance from St. Brigid's Convent. 

The mediaeval Chronicler quotes the old Annalist 
for the following year : '^ The king, the son of Ere, 
returned to the side of the descendants of Nial. 
Blood reached the girdle in each plain. The exte- 
rior territories were enriched. Seventeen times nine 
chariots he brought, and long shall it be remembered. 
He bore away the. hostages of the Ui-Neill with the 
hostages of the plain of Munster." 

Ten years later we find the two sons of this same 
king, Muirceartac son of Ere, by name Fergus and 
Domnall, fighting under the shadow of Knocknarea 
mountain against Eogan Bel the king of Connacht ; 
the ancient Annalist, doubtless contemporary with 
the events recorded, thus commemorated the battle 
in verse : 

^^ The battle of the Ui-Fiacrac was fought with 
the fury of edged weapons against Bel ; 

*^ The kine of the enemy roareTl with the javelins, 
the battle was spread out at Crinder ; 

'^ The River of Shells bore to the great sea the 
blood of men with their flesh j 



212 IRELAND. 

^^ They carried many trophies across Eaba^ to- 
gether with the head of Eogan Bel." 

During this stormy time, which only carried for- 
ward the long progress of fighting since the days of 
the prime, a famous school of learning and religion 
had been founded at Moville by Finian, ^4he tutor of 
the saints of Ireland." The home of his church and 
school is a very beautiful one, with sombre moun- 
tains behind rising from oak-woods into shaggy 
masses of heather, the blue waters of Lough Foyle 
in front, and across the mouth of the lough the silver 
sands and furrowed chalk hills of Antrim, blending 
into green plains. Here the Psalms and the Gospels 
were taught in Latin to pupils who had in no wise 
given up their love for the old poetry and traditions 
of their motherland. Here Colum studied, afterwards 
called Colum Kill, ^^ Saint Colum of the Churches," 
and here arose a memorable dispute concerning a 
Latin manuscript of the Psalms. The manuscript 
belonged to Finian, founder of the school, and was 
esteemed one of the treasures of his college. Colum, 
then a young student, ardently longed for a copy, 
and, remaining in the church after service, he daily 
copied a part of the sacred text. When his work 
was completed, Finian discovered it, and at once 



THE SAINTS AND SCHOLARS. 213 

claimed the copy of his book as also his. The mat- 
ter was submitted to an umpire, who gave the famous 
decision : '' Unto every cow her calf; unto every book 
its copy " — the copy belonged to the owner of the 
book. This early decision of copyright was by no 
means acceptable to the student Coluni. He dis- 
puted its justice, and the quarrel spread till it re- 
sulted in a battle. The discredit attaching to the 
whole episode resulted in the banishment of Colum, 
who sailed away northward and eastward towards the 
isles and fiords of that land which, from the Irish 
Scoti who civilized it, now bears the name of Scot- 
land. Let us recall a few verses written by Colum 
on his departure, in a version which echoes some- 
thing of the original melody and form : 

"We are rounding Moy-n-Olurg, we sweep by its head and 

We plunge through the Foyle, 
Whose swans could enchant with their music the dead and 

Make pleasure of toil. . . . 
Oh, Erin, were wealth my desire, what a wealth were 

To gain far from thee, 
In the land of the stranger, but there even health were 

A sickness to me ! 
Alas for the voyage, oh high King of Heaven, 

Enjoined upon me. 
For that I on the red plain of bloody Cooldrevin 

Was present to see. 



214 IRELAND. 

How happy the son is of Dima ; no sorrow 

For him is designed, 
He is having this hour, round his own Kill in Durrow, 

The wish of his mind. 
The sound of the wind in the elms, like the strings of 

A harp being played, 
The note of the blackbird that claps with the wings of 

Delight in the glade. 
With him in Kos-grenca the cattle are lowing 

At earliest dawn, 
On the brink of the summer the pigeons are cooing 

And doves on the lawn. ..." 

In another measure, he agam mourns his exile : 
^' Happy to be on Ben Edar, before going over the 
sea 5 white, white the dashing of the wave against 
its face ; the bareness of its shore and its border. . . . 

"How swiftly we travel ; there is a grey eye 
Looks back upon Erin, but it no more 
Shall see while the stars shall endure in the sky. 
Her women, her men, or her stainless shore. ..." 

This great-hearted and impetuous exile did not 
waste his life in useless regrets. Calling forth the 
fire of his genius, and facing the reality of life, he 
set himself to work, spreading the teaching of the 
New Way among the Picts of the north — the same 
Picts who, in years gone by, had raged against the 
barrier of Hadrian between Forth and Clyde. The 



THE SAINTS AND SCHOLARS. 215 

year of his setting out was 563 ; the great center 
of his work was in the sacred isle of lona, off the 
Ross of Mull. lona stands in the rush of Atlantic 
surges and fierce western storms, yet it is an island 
of rare beauty amid the tinted mists of summer 
dawns. Under the year 592, a century after Saint 
Patrick's death, we find this entry in the Chronicle : 
" Colum Kill, son of Feidlimid, Apostle of Scotland, 
head of the piety of the most part of Ireland and 
Scotland after Patrick, died in his own church in lona 
in Scotland, after the thirty-fifth year of his pilgrim- 
age, on Sunday night, the ninth of June. Seventy- 
seven years was his whole age when he resigned his 
spirit to heaven." The corrected date is 596. 

We can see in Colum of the Churches the very 
spirit of turbulence and adventure, the fierce impetu- 
osity and readiness for dispute, which led to the con- 
tests between the chieftains of Ireland, the wars be- 
tween province and province, often between valley 
and valley. It is the same spiritual energy, working 
itself out in another way, transmuted by the sacred 
fire into a divine mission. In the same way the 
strong will of Meave, the romantic power of Deirdre 
and Grania, transmuted to ideal purposes, was the 
inspiration of Saint Brigid and so many like her, 



216 lEELAND. 

who devoted their powers to the religious teaching 
of women. 

We should doubtless fail utterly to understand the 
riddle of history^ were we to regret the wild warring 
of these early times as a mere lamentable loss of 
life^ a useless and cruel bloodshed. We are too 
much given to measuring other times and other 
moods of the soul by our own, and many false judg- 
ments issue from this error. Peaceful material 
production is our main purpose, and we learn many 
lessons of the Will embodied in the material world 
when we follow this purpose honestly. But before 
our age could begin, it was necessary for the races 
to come to personal consciousness. This end seems 
everywhere to have been reached by a long epoch 
of strife, the contending of man against man, of 
tribe against tribe. Thus were brought to full con- 
sciousness the instinct of personal valor, personal 
honor and personal readiness to face death. 

Only after this high personal consciousness is kin- 
dled can a race enter the wider path of national life, 
where vivid and intense individuals unite their forces 
to a common end, reaching a common consciousness, 
and holding their power in common for the purposes 
of all. After the lessons of fighting come the lessons 



THE SAINTS AND SCHOLARS. 217 

of work. For these lessons of work, for the direct 
touch with the everlasting Will gained in all honest 
work, our own age is to be valued, far more than for 
the visible and material fruits which that work pro- 
duces. 

In like manner the old epoch of war is to be 
esteemed for the lessons it taught of high valor, sac- 
rifice, heroic daring. And to what admirable ends 
these same qualities may tend we can see in a life 
like that of Coliim Kill, ''' head of the piety of the 
most part of Ireland and Scotland after Patrick." 

Yet the days of old were grim enough to live in. 
Let this record of some half-century later testify. 
It is but one year culled from a long red rank of 
years. We give the Chronicler's own words : ^^ 645 : 
The sixth year of Conall and Ceallac. Mac Laisre, 
abbot of Bangor, died on May 16. Ragallac son of 
Uatac, King of Connacht, was killed by jMaelbrigde 
son of Motlacan, of which was said : 

" 'Ragallac son of Uatac was pierced on the back of a white 
steed ; 

Muiream has well lamented him; Catal has well avenged him. 

Catal is this day in battle, though bound to peace in the presence 
of kings ; 

Though Catal is without a father, his father is not without ven- 
geance. 



218 lEELAND. 

Estimate his terrible revenge from the account of it related : 
He slew six men and fifty ; he made sixteen devastations ; 
I had my share like another in the revenge of Kagallac, — 
I have the gray beard in my hand, of Maelbrigde son of Mot- 
lacan.' " 

These are evidently the very words of one who 
fought in the battle. Nor need this in any way sur- 
prise us^ for we have far older Chronicles set down 
year by year in unbroken record. The matter is 
easy to prove. The Chronicles of Ulster record 
eclipses of the sun and moon as early as 495^ — two 
years after Saint Patrick's death. It was, of course, 
the habit of astronomers to reckon eclipses back- 
wardsj and of annalists to avail themselves of these 
reckonings. The Venerable Bede, for example, has 
thus inserted eclipses in his history. The result is 
that the Venerable Bede has the dates several days 
wrong, while the Chronicles of Ulster, where direct 
observation took the place of faulty reckoning, has 
them right, to the day and hour. It is only in quite 
modern times that we have reached sufficiently accu- 
rate knowledge of the moon's movements to vindicate 
the old Ulster Annalists, who began their work not 
less than a hundred and fifty years before the battle 
we have just recorded. 

Nor should we exaggerate the condition of the 



THE SAINTS AND SCHOLARS. 219 

time, thinking of it as altogether given over to rav- 
aging and devastation. Even though there were 
two or three expeditions and battles every year, 
these would only affect a small part of the whole 
country. Over all the rest, the tending of cattle in 
the glades of the forest, the sowing and reaping of 
wheat and oats, the gathering of fruit and nuts, 
continued in quiet contentment and peace. The 
young men practiced the arts of war and exercised 
themselves in Avarlike games. The poets sang to 
them, the heralds recounted the great doings of old, 
how Cuculain kept the ford, how Concobar thirsted 
in his heart for Deirdre, how the son of Cumal went 
to war, how golden-tongued Ossin was ensnared by 
the spirits. The gentle life of tillage and the keep- 
ing of cattle could never engage the whole mental 
force of so vigorous a race. What wonder, then, 
that, when a chieftain had some real or imagined 
wrong to avenge, or some adventure to propose, — 
what wonder that bold spirits were ever ready to ac- 
company him, leaving the women to their distaffs 
and the tending of children and the grinding of 
corn ! Mounting their horses, they rode forth 
through the woods, under the huge arms of the oak- 
trees, along the banks of swift-gliding rivers, through 



220 IRELAND. 

passes of the lowering hills. While still in familiar 
territory, the time of the march was passed in song 
and story. Then came increased precaution, and 
gradually heightened pulses marked the stages of the 
way. The rival chieftain, warned by his scouts and 
outlying tribesmen, got word of their approach, and 
hastily replenishing his granaries and driving the 
cattle into the great circle of his embankments, pre- 
pared to meet the coming foe. Swords, spears, bows, 
arrows were the arms of both sides. Though leather 
tunics were common, coats of mail came only at a 
later date. The attackers under cover of the night 
sped across the open ground before the fort, and 
tried to storm the fortress, the defenders meanwhile 
showering down keen-pointed arrows on them from 
above. Both parties, under the chieftains' guidance, 
fought fiercely, in a fever of excitement, giving no 
heed to w^ounds, seeing nothing but the foe and the 
battlements to be scaled. Then either a successful 
sortie broke the ranks of the assailants and sent 
them back to their forest camp in wild disorder, 
or, the stockade giving way, the stormers swept 
in like a wave of the sea, and all was chaos and 
wild struggle hand to hand. Whatever the out- 
come, both sides thought of the wild surge of will 



THE SAINTS AND SCHOLARS. 221 

and valor in that hour as the crowning event of 
their lives. 

Meanwhile, within the quiet enclosures of the 
monasteries and religious schools, the spirit of the 
time was working with not less fervor, to invisible 
and ideal ends. At Bangor, on the neck of the 
northern Ards 5 at Moville, where Lough Fojle 
spreads its inland sea ; at Saul, where the first Mes- 
senger won his first convert ; at Devenish Island 
amid the waters of Lough Erne 5 at Monasterboice 
in the plain of Louth 5 at Glendalough, among the 
solemn hills of Wicklow ; at Kildare, beneath the 
oak-woods ; at Durrow, amid the central marshes, and 
many another ancient seat of learning, the way of 
wisdom and holiness was trod with gladness. Latin 
had been taught since the early days of the Message ; 
the native tongue of Ireland, consecrated in the 
hymns of St. Patrick and the poems of St. Colum 
of the Churches, was the language in which all 
pupils were taught, the modern ministrant to the 
classical speech of Rome. Nor were the Scriptures 
alone studied. Terence, Virgil, Ovid, the Augustans 
and the men of the silver age, were familiar in the 
Irish schools ; and to these Latin writers were soon 
added the Greeks, more especially — as was natural 



222 IRELAND. 

— the Greek Fathers, the religious philosophers, and 
those who embodied the thought and controversies 
of the early Christian centuries. To Greek, Hebrew 
was added, so that both Old and New Testaments 
were known in their proper tongues. About the 
time when '' Ragallac son of Uatac was pierced on 
the back of a white steed," Saint Camin in his island 
school at Inis Caltra, where red mountains hem in 
Lough Derg of the Shannon, was writing his Com- 
mentary on the Psalms, recording the Hebrew read- 
ings on the margin of the page. A few years before 
that battle, in 634, Saint Cummian of Durrow, some 
thirty miles to the east of Camin's Holy Island, wrote 
to his brother, the Abbot of Ion a in the northern 
seas, quoting Latin writers sacred and secular, as 
well as Origen, Cyril and Pachomius among the 
Greeks. The learned man discusses the astronomi- 
cal systems of the Mediterranean world, giving the 
names of months and cycles in Hebrew, Greek and 
Egyptian, and telling of his researches into the true 
time of Easter, while on a journey to Italy and 
Rome. This letter, which has come down to our 
days, is first-hand testimony to the learning of the 
early Irish schools. 

Fifty years later, in 683, we hear of the Saxons 



Ancient Cfoss, Glendaloug^h 



THE SAINTS AND SCHOLAKS. 223 

for the first and almost the last time in the history 
of Ireland. It is recorded that the North Saxons 
raided Mag Breag in the East of Meath, attacking 
both churches and chieftains. They carried away 
many hostages and much spoil, but the captives were 
soon after set at liberty and sent home again, on the 
intercession of a remarkable man, Adamnan, the 
biographer of Colum of the Churches, whose success 
in his mission was held to be miraculous. 

For more than a century after this single Saxon 
raid Ireland was wholly undisturbed by foreign in- 
vasion, and the work of building churches, founding 
schools, studying Hebrew and Greek and Latin, 
went on with increasing vigor and success. An 
army of missionaries went forth to other lands, fol- 
lowing in the footsteps of Colum of the Churches, 
and of these we shall presently speak. The Hfe of 
the church was so rich and fruitful that we are led 
to think of this as a period of childlike and idyllic 
peace. 

Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. 
The raids, devastations and wars between province 
and province, tribe and tribe, went on without a 
year's interruption. This was the normal course of 
the nation's life, the natural outlet of the nation's 



224 IRELAND. 

energy : not less a visible sign of invisible inward 
power than the faith and fervor of the schools. We 
shall get the truest flavor of the times by quoting 
again from the old Annals. That they were recorded 
year by year^ we have already seen 5 the records of 
frosts, great snow-storms, years of rich harvests and 
the like, interspersed among the fates of kings, 
show how faithfully the annals were kept, — as, for 
example, the winter of great cold, ^^ when all the 
rivers and lakes of Ireland were frozen over," in the 
year after the Saxon raid. 

Here again, under the year 701, is the word of a 
man then living : '' After Loing Seac son of Angus 
son of Domnall had been eight years in the sov- 
reignty of Ireland, he was slain in the battle of Ceann 
by Cealleac of Lough Cime, the son of Ragallac, 
as Cealleac himself testifies : 

'■ ' ' For his deeds of ambition he was slain in the morning at Glas 
Cuilg; 
I wounded Loing Seac with a sword, the monarch of Ireland 
round.' " 

Two years later Saint Adamnan died, after govern- 
ing the Abbey of lona for six and twenty years. It 
was said of him that " He made a slave of himself 
to his virtues," and his great life-work, the Latin his- 



THE SAINTS AND SCHOLARS. 225 

tory of Saint Colum of the Churches, founder of the 
Ion a Abbey, to this day testiHes to his high learning 
and wisdom. 

Fourteen years later " Leinster was five times de- 
vastated by the Ui-Neill," the descendants of Nial, 
and a battle was fought between the men of Con- 
nacht and Munster. Thus the lives of saints and 
warriors were interwoven. On very rare occasions 
the two lives of the race came into collision. Thus, 
a quarrel arose between Congus the Abbot and Aed 
Roin king of Ulad. Congus summoned to his aid 
the chief of the Ui-Neill, Aed Allan by name, in 
these verses : 

''Say to the cold Aed Allan that I have been oppressed by a 
feeble enemy : 
Aed Roin insulted me last night at Cill Cunna of the sweet 
music. ' ' 

Aed Allan made these verses on his way to battle 
to avenge the insult : 

" For Cill Cunna the church of my spiritual father, 
I take this day a journey on the road. 
Aed Roin shall leave his head with me, 

Or I shall leave ray head with him." 

The further history of that same year, 733, is best 

told in the words of the Annals : ^' Aed Allan, king 

15 



226 IKELAND. 

of Ireland, assembled his forces to proceed into Lein- 
ster, and he arrived at the Ford of Seannait (in Kil- 
dare). The Leinstermen collected the greatest num- 
ber they were able, to defend their rights against 
him. The king Aed Allan himself went into the 
battle, and the chieftains of the north along with 
him. The chieftains of Leinster came with their 
kings into the battle, and bloodily and heroically was 
the battle fought between them. Heroes were 
slaughtered and bodies were hacked. Aed Allan 
and Aed, son of Colgan, king of Leinster, met each 
other, and Aed son of Colgan was slain by Aed 
Allan. The Leinstermen were killed, slaughtered, 
cut off, and dreadfully exterminated in this battle, so 
that there escaped of them but a small remnant and 
a few fugitives. '^ 

To round out the picture, to contrast the two 
streams of the nation's life, let us give this, from the 
following year : ^^ 734 : Fifth year of Aed Allan. 
Saint Samtain, virgin, of Cluain Bronaig (Longford), 
died on December 19. It was of her that Aed 
Allan gave this testimony : 

"Samtain for enlightening various sinners, 

A servant who observed stern chastity, 
In the wide plain of fertile Meath 

Great suffering did Samtain endure ; 



THE SAINTS AND SCHOLARS. 227 

She undertook a thing not easy, — 

Fasting for the kingdom above. 
She lived on scanty food ; 

Hard were her girdles ; 
She struggled in venomous conflicts ; 

Pure was her heart amid the wicked. 
To the bosom of the Lord, with a pure death, 

Samtain passed from her trials." 



THE RAIDS OF THE NORTHMEN. 



X. 

THE RAIDS OF THE NORTHMEN. 
A.D. 750-1050. 

Aed Allan, tlie king who so feelingly wrote the 
epitaph of the saintly virgin Samtain, needed an epi- 
taph himself four years later, for he fell in battle 
with Domnall son of Murcad son of Diarmaid, who 
succeeded him on the throne. It is recorded that, in 
the following year, the sea cast ashore a w^hale under 
the mountains of Mourne, to the great wonder of 
those who dwelt by the hill of Rudraige. Thus do 
the Chronicles establish their good faith, by putting 
on record things trifling or grave, with equal impar- 
tiality. 

They were presently to have something more 
memorable to record than the loss of a battle or the 
stranding of a whale. But before we come to this 
new chapter in the life of Ireland, let us show the 
continuity of the forces we have already depicted. 
The old tribal turmoil went on unabated. In 771, 
the first year of Doncad son of Domnall in the sov- 
ereignty over Ireland, that ruler made a full muster 

( 231 ) 



232 IKELAND. 

of tlie Ui-Neill and marched into Leinster. The 
Leinstermen moved before the monarch and his 
forces^ until they arrived at the fort called Nectain's 
Shield in Kildare. Domcad with his forces was en- 
trenched at Aillin^ whence his people continued to 
fire^ burn^ plunder and devastate the province for the 
space of a week^ when the Leinstermen at last sub- 
mitted to his will. Seventeen years later it is re- 
corded that the church and abbey of Ardmaca, or, as 
we may now begin to call it^ Armagh, were struck 
by lightning, and the night was terrible with thunder, 
lightning and wind. 

We see, therefore, that the double life of the 
people, the life of valor and the life of wisdom, were 
following their steady course in camp and school. 
We may call up a very interesting witness to the 
whole condition of Ireland during this epoch : Alfred 
king of the Northumbrian Saxons, who spent several 
years traveling through the land and studying in the 
schools. On his departure, he wrote an ode of ac- 
knowledgment to the country he was leaving, in the 
verse of the native Irish tongue. From this ode we 
may quote a few picturesque lines, taking them from 
a version which preserves something of the original 
rhythm : 



THE RAIDS OF THE NORTHMEN, 233 

** I traveled its fruitful provinces round, 
And in every one of the five I found, 
Alike in church and in palace hall. 
Abundant apparel and food for all. 
Gold and silver I found, and money, 
Plenty of wheat and plenty of honey ; 
I found God's people rich in pity ; 
Found many a feast and many a city. . . . 
I found in each great church moreo'er, 
Whether on island or on shore, 
Piety, learning, fond affection, 
Holy Avelcome and kind protection. . . . 
I found in Munster unfettered of any 
Kings and queens and poets a many. 
Poets well skilled in music and measure ; 
Prosperous doings, mirth and pleasure. 
I found in Connacht the just, redundance 
Of riches, milk in lavish abundance ; 
Hospitality, vigor, fame, 
In Cruacan's land of heroic name. . . . 
I found in Ulster, from hill to glen, 
Hardy warriors, resolute men. 
Beauty that bloomed when youth Avas gone, 
And strength transmitted from sire to son. . . . 
I found in Leinster the smooth and sleek, 
From Dublin to Slewmargy's peak, 
Flourishing pastures, valor, health. 
Song-loving worthies, commerce, wealth. . . . 
I found in Meath's fair principality 
Virtue, vigor, and hospitality ; 
Candor, joyfulness, bravery, purity — 
Ireland's bulwark and security. 
I found strict morals in age and youth, 



234 IRELAND. 

I found historians recording truth. 
The things I sing of in verse unsmooth 
I found them all ; I have written sooth." 

The modern form of the names used by the trans- 
lator gives this version a slightly misleading tone. 
Ulster, Munster, Leinster were still known by their 
old names : Ulad, Mumain and Lagin. The Danish 
termination by which we know them had not been 
added. In like manner, Dublin in those days and far 
later was still called At-Cliat, the Ford of the 
Hurdles. Yet the tribute which the Saxon king 
paid to Ireland has a true ring. It thoroughly sup- 
ports what we have said : that incessant tribal war- 
fare rather expressed than detracted from the vigor 
of the nation's life. It had this grave defect, how- 
ever : it so kindled and cherished the instinct of sep- 
arateness that union in face of a common foe was 
almost impossible. Long years of adverse fate were 
needed to merge the keen individual instinct of old 
into the common consciousness of to-day. 

Modern historians generally write as if the on- 
slaught of the Northmen had had this unifying effect j 
as if it had been a great calamity, overwhelming the 
country for several centuries, and submerging its 
original life under a tide of conquest. Here again 



THE RAIDS OF THE NORTHMEN. 235 

the history of the time, as recorded year by year in 
the Annals, leads us to a wholly different conclusion. 
We find inroads of the Northmen, it is true ; but they 
are only interludes in the old national life of storm 
and struggle. That enduring tribal conflict, of which 
we have already seen so much, did not cease even for 
a year. Nor can it have greatly mattered to the 
dwellers in some remote valley whether they were 
sacked, their cattle driven off, and their children 
taken captive by strangers or by men of their own 
land. 

There was one chief difference : the foreigners, 
being still heathens, did not spare the churches and 
the schools. The golden or silver reliquaries, the 
jeweled manuscript-cases, the offerings of precious 
stones and rich ornaments laid on the altars : these 
things proved an irresistible temptation to the roving 
sea-kings. They often burned or cast away the manu- 
scripts, eager only to take the jeweled coverings, 
and in this way many monuments of the olden time 
have been lost, and many gaps in the history of the 
nation made irreparable. Yet it would seem that 
even the loss of manuscripts has been exaggerated, 
since such lavish abundance remains to us from the 
times before the first northern raiders came. Many 



236 IKELAND. 

a remote shrine was never even approached by the 
northern wanderers ; and^ in the long times of peace 
between raid and raid, one school had time to gain 
from another copies of the books which were lost. 
We may hope that the somewhat rigid Adews of copy- 
right expressed in the matter of St. Finian^s Psalter 
were not invariably adhered to. We have Chroni- 
cles kept with unbroken regularity year by year 
through the whole of the epoch of Northern raids, 
and they by no means indicate a period of national 
depression, nor justify us in thinking of these raids 
as much more than episodes in the general fighting of 
the nation, — the martial state through which every 
modern country has passed before emerging to homo- 
geneous life. 

To come to the events themselves, as they ap- 
peared to the men who witnessed them. We iind the 
first record of the Northern raiders under the year 
795 : ^^ The burning of Lambay by the Gentiles. 
The shrines were broken and plundered/' This 
Lambay is an island of considerable extent, off the 
Dublin coast, some six or seven miles north of Howth. 
It rises gradually from the south extremity into a 
purple cliff of porphyry facing the northern sea, and 
on the sheltered slope under the sun a little church 



tup: raids of the Northmen. 237 

colony with schools and dwelling-houses had been 
built. Against this peaceful solitude the raiders 
came, burning and plundering, and when they rowed 
away again in their long ships towards the north, a 
smoldering black ruin bore testimony that they were 
indeed Gentiles, unblessed by Christian baptism. 

Three years later the little island of St. Patrick, 
six miles north of Lambay, met with a like fate. It 
was ^^ burned by the Grentiles," as the Chronicles say. 
And from that time forth we hear of their long ships 
again and again, hovering hawk-like around the 
coasts of Ireland and Scotland. In 802, and again in 
806, the Scottish lona of Colum of the Churches was 
raided, and the next year we iind the pirates making 
a descent upon Inismurray, off the Sligo coast, be- 
tween the summit of Knocknarea and the cliffs of 
Slieve League. This last settlement of saints and 
scholars Avas founded by Molaise, — he who had pro- 
nounced sentence of exile on Colum of the Churches, 
the banishment that was the beginning of grace for 
the northern Picts. His oratory still remains on the 
island, beside the Church of the Men, the Church of 
the Women and the circular stone fort, which was 
very likely built to guard against new attacks, after 
this first raid. There are holy wells and altars there 



238 IRELAND. 

alsOj and Inismurray, better than any other place, 
gives us a picture of the old scholastic life of that 
remote and wonderful time. 

Five years later^ the Northern raiders made their 
way further round the coast, under the shadow of the 
western mountains and the great cliffs of Achill 5 we 
read of ^' a slaughter of the people of Connemara by 
the Gentiles '^ in that year, and the year following, 
other battles with Gentiles are recorded in the same 
part of Ireland. 

In 818, if we are to believe the Annalist, a sin- 
gular thing happened : " An army was led by Mur- 
cad, having the Ui-Neill of the North with him. 
Concobar king of Ireland with the Ui-Neill of the 
South and the Leinstermen came from the South on 
the other hand. When they came to one place, it 
happened, through a miracle of God, that they sep- 
arated from each other for that time without slaughter 
or one of them spilling a drop of the other's blood." 
That entry better than any other shows the restless 
spirit of the times. It shows, too, that the first shock 
of Norse invasion had not in any sense warned the 
people and chieftains of Ireland of coming danger, 
nor had it in any degree checked the steady course 
of the nation's growth through storm and strife to 



THE RAIDS OF THE NORTHMEN. 239 

personal consciousness, as the stepping-stone to the 
wider common consciousness of the modern world. 

The year following we read of " a plundering of 
Howth by the Gentiles, who carried off a great prey 
of women." These captives were doubtless the first 
to bring the Message of the New Way to the wild 
granite lands of the north, Avhere the mountains in 
their grandeur frown upon the long inlets of the 
fiords. They taught to their children in those wild 
lands of exile the lessons of grace and holiness, so 
rudely interrupted when the long ships of the Norse- 
men were sighted from the Hill of Howth. 

A year later, in 820, the raiders had found their 
way to the southernmost extremity of the island ; to 
Cape Clear, oif the coast of Cork, l^his once again 
brings to our notice the position of so many of the 
early religious settlements, — on rocky islands off the 
coasts, well out of the turmoil of tribal strife which 
rao-ed uninterrupted on the mainland. St. Patrick's 
Island and Lambay on the east, Clear Island on the 
south, and Inismurray on the northwest, so well pro- 
tected by the sea from disturbance at home, were, by 
that very isolation, terribly exposed to these foreign 
raiders from the sea. Howth, Moville and Bangor, 
all on peninsulas, all by the seashore, enjoyed a like 



240 lEELAND. 

immunity and were open to a like danger. There- 
fore we are not surprised to find that^ two years later, 
Bangor was " plundered by the Gentiles.'^ 

It will be remembered that St. Patrick's first 
church was built on land given him by Dicu, chief- 
tain of the district round Downpatrick, a name which 
commemorates the presence of the Messenger. Two 
sons of this same Dicu had been held as hostages by 
Laogaire the king, and their marvelous escape from 
durance was recorded in the name, Dun-da-lath-glas, 
the Dwelling of the Two Broken Fetters, given to 
Downpatrick. The place was of old renown. Known 
to Ptolemy as Dunum, it was, during Concobar's sway 
at Emain of Maca, the fortress of the strong chief, 
Celtcar, whose huge embattled hill of earth still rises 
formidable over the Quoyle River. In the year 823, 
we read, Dundalathglas was plundered by the Gren- 
tiles ; but the story does not stop here, for we are 
further told that these same Grentiles were beaten by 
the Ulad armies not far from the great fort of Celt- 
car. This is the first entry of this tenor. Hitherto, 
the Northmen seem to have fallen only on outlying 
religious communities, in remote islands or on the 
seashore ; but this last raid brought them to one of 
the verv few church-schools which had been built 



THE RAIDS OF THE NORTHMEN. 241 

close to a strong fortress, with the result that the 
Northmen were beaten and driven back into their 
ships. 

Three years later the Gentiles plundered Lusk on 
the mainland opposite Lambay, but in that same year 
they were twice defeated in battle, once by Cairbre 
son of Catal, and once by the king of Ulad. The 
raids of the Norse warriors grow more frequent and 
determined from this time ; in itself a testimony to 
the wealth and prosperity of the country, the abun- 
dance of gold and of accumulated riches, whether cat- 
tle or corn, ornaments or richly dyed stuffs, red and 
purple and blue. Word seems to have been carried 
to the wild hills and fiords of frozen Scandinavia 
that here was booty in abundance, and the pirate 
hordes came down in swarms. 

Thus we read that Armagh, the center of St. Pat- 
rick's work, and the chief home of learning, was 
thrice plundered in 830, the raiders sailing up Car- 
lingford Lough and then making a dash of some fif- 
teen miles across the undulating country separating 
them from the city of churches. This is the first 
time they ventured out of sight of their boats. Two 
years later they plundered Clondalkin, nine miles in- 
land from the Dublin coast, where the Round Tower 

16 



242 lEELAND. 

still marks the site of the old church and school. To 
the growing frequency of these raids, it would seem, 
the building of Bound Towers is to be attributed ; 
they were at once belfries and places of refuge. We 
find, therefore, that the door is almost always many 
feet above the ground, being reached by a ladder 
afterwards drawn up by those inside. The number 
of these Round Towers all over the country, and the 
perfect preservation of many of them, show how uni- 
versal this 23recaution was, and how effective were 
the refugees thus provided. It is instructive to read 
under this same year, 832, that " a great number of 
the family of Clonmacnoise were slain by Feidlimid 
king of Cashel, all their land being burned by him 
up to the door of the church.^^ Thus the progress 
of tribal struggle was uninterrupted by the Gentile 
raids. 

Four years later, a fleet of sixty Norse fighting 
galleys sailed up the Boyne. Sixty long ships en- 
tered the Lifi"ey in the same year, and a year later 
they captured the fortress of the Ford of the Hur- 
dles, At-Cliat, — the old name of Dublin. Three 
years later we find the king of Munster plundering 
Meath and West Meath, showing that no sense of 
common danger disturbed the native kings. This 



RotJnd Tower, Antrkn 



THE RAIDS OF THE NORTHMEN. 243 

strengthens the view we have already taken : that 
the attacks of the Norse sea-kings were only an in- 
terlude in the incessant contests between the tribes 
of province and province ; contests perfectly natural 
and normal to the development of the land, and 
through which every country has at some period 
passed. 

It would seem that the Northmen who captured the 
Ford of the Hurdles departed from their former 
usage. Fortifying themselves, or strengthening the 
existent fortress, they determined to pass the winter 
in Ireland, instead of returning, as they had always 
done up to this time, before the autumn storms made 
dangerous the navigation of the wild northern seas. 
Their presence in this fort gave the native powers a 
center upon which to concentrate their attack, and as 
a result the year 846 was marked by a signal victory 
over the Northmen, twelve hundred of those at At- 
Cliat being slain. Four other successful contests 
with the raiders are recorded for the same year, and 
we can thoroughly trust the Annalists who, up to 
this time, have so f^iithfuUy recorded the disasters of 
their own race. 

About the same time the Northmen gained a second 
point of vantage by seizing and fortifying a strong 



244 IKELAND. 

position where the town of Cork now stands. In- 
deed their instinct of seamanship, their knowledge of 
good harbors and the conditions which make them, 
led them to fix their first entrenchments at Dublin, 
Cork and Limerick, — which remained for centuries 
after the great ports of the country on the east, south 
and west ; and the Norse flavor still lingers in the 
names of Carling-ford, Wex-ford and Water-ford, 
the Fiords of Cairlinn, Weis and Vadre. A won- 
derful side-light on the whole epoch is shed by this 
entry for 847 : " In this year sevenscore ships of the 
Gentiles from abroad fought against the Gentiles in 
Ireland." It would seem that the earlier comers, 
who had drawn up their long ships on the beach, and 
thrown up earthworks round their camp, instantly 
resented the attempt of later arrivals to poach on 
their preserves, and that a fierce fight was the result. 
During the whole of the following century we find 
signs of like rivalry between diff*erent bands of 
raiders, and it becomes evident that they were as 
much divided amongst themselves as were the native 
tribes they fought against. 

Two years later a further light is shed on this mu- 
tual strife when we are told that ^^ Dark Gentiles 
came to At-Cliat and slaughtered the Fair Gentiles, 



THE RAIDS OF THE XORTILMEX. 245 

plundering their fort and carrying away both people 
and property." The next year saw a new struggle 
between the Dark Gentiles and the Fair Gentiles, 
with much mutual slaughter. This leads us to real- 
ize that these raiders, vaguely grouped by modern 
writers under the single name of Danes, really be- 
longed to several different races, and doubtless came 
from many parts of the Baltic coasts, as well as from 
the fiords of the great Scandinavian peninsula. The 
Dark Foreigners are without doubt some of that 
same race of southern origin which we saw, ages 
earlier, migrating northwards along the Atlantic sea- 
board, — a race full of the spirit of the sea, and never 
happier than when the waves were curling and break- 
ing under their prows. They found their way, we 
saw, as far northwards as the coast of Scotland, the 
Western Isles, and distant Norway over the foam, 
Avhere the long fiords and rugged precipices gave 
them a congenial home. We find them hovering 
over the shores of Ireland at the very dawn of her 
history ; and, iu later but still remote ages, their 
power waned before the De Danaan tribes. This 
same dark race returning now from Norway, swooped 
hawk-like upon the rich shrines of the Irish island 
sanctuaries, only to come into hostile contact once 



246 lEELAND. 

more with sons of that golden-haired race which 
scattered the dark Fomorians at Mag Tuiread of 
the North. For the Fair Gentiles of our mediaeval 
Chronicle are no other than the golden-haired Scan- 
dinavians 5 the yellow-locked Baltic race that gave 
conquerors and a new ideal of beauty to the whole 
modern w^orld. And this Baltic race, as we saw in 
an earlier epoch, was the source and mother of the 
old De Danaans, whose hair was like new-smelted 
gold or the yellow flag-lilies of our lakes and rivers. 
Thus after long ages the struggle of Fomor and De 
Danaan w^as renewed at the Ford of the Hurdles be- 
tween the Dark and Fair Strangers, rivals for the 
plunder of the Irish religious schools. 

Though the personalities of this age do not stand 
forth with the high relief of Cuculain and Concobar, 
though we can hardly quote poems to equal the songs 
of Find son of Cumal and Ossin of the golden tongue, 
yet genuine inspiration never failed in the hearts of 
the warriors and on the lips of the bards. Thus in 
860 did a poet lament the death of a king : 

"Mournfully is spread her veil of grief over Erin 
Since Maelseaclain, chieftain of our race has perished, — 
Maelseaclain of the flowing Shannon. 
Many a moan resounds in every place ; 
It is mournful news among the Gael. 



THE KAIDS OF THE NORTHMEN. 247 

Red wine has been spilled into the valley : 
Erin's monarch has died. 

Though he was wont to ride a white charger, 
Though he had many steeds, 
Plis car this day is drawn by a yoke of oxen. 
The king of Erin is dead." 

Four years afterwards the contest between the 
raiders and the chieftains grew keener^ more cen- 
tered, more like organized war. '"' A complete muster 
of the North was made by Aed Finnliat, so that he 
plundered the fortresses of the foreigners, wherever 
they were in the north 5 and he carried off their cat- 
tle and accoutrements, their goods and chattels. The 
foreigners of the province came together at Lough 
Foyle. After Aed king of Ireland had heard that 
this gathering of strangers was on the borders of his 
country, he was not negligent in attending to them. 
For he marched towards them Avith all his forces, and 
a battle was fought fiercely and spiritedly between 
them. The victory was gained over the foreigners, 
and a slaughter Avas made of them. Their heads 
were collected to one place, in the presence of the 
king, and twelve-score heads were reckoned be- 
fore him, which was the number slain in that 
battle, besides the numbers of those who were 
wounded and carried off by him in the agonies of 



248 IRELAND. 

death, and who died of their wounds some time 
afterwards." 

A renewal of tribal warfare in the second year 
after this, when this same Aed the king was attacked 
by Flann the lord of Breag in Meath, called forth 
certain battle- verses full of the fire and fervor of the 
time. 

A poet sang : 

"At Kiladerry this day the ravens shall taste sips of blood : 
A victory shall be gained over the magic host of the Gentiles 
and over Flann." 

The mother of Flann sang : 

"Happiness! Woe! Good news! Bad news! The gaining 

of a great triumphant battle. 
Happy the king whom it makes victorious ; unhappy the king 

who was defeated. 
Unhappy the host of Leat Cuin, to have fallen by the sprites 

of Slain ; 
Happy the reign of great Aed, and unhappy the loss of 

Flann." 

Aed the victorious king sang : 

" The troops of Leinster are with him, with the added men 
of swift Boyne ; 
This shows the treachery of Flann : the concord of Gentiles 
at his side." 

After ten years, a bard thus sings the dirge of Aed : 



THE RAIDS OF THE NORTHMEN. 249 

'' Long is the wintry night, with rough gusts of wind ; 

Under pressing grief we meet it, since the red-speared king 
of the noble house lives not. 

It is fearful to watch how the waves heave from the bottom ; 

To them may be compared all those who with us lament him. 

A generous, wise, staid man, of whose renown the populous 
Tara was full. 

A shielded oak that sheltered the palace of Milid's sons. 

Master of the games of the fair hilled Taillten, 

King of Tara of a hundred conflicts ; 

Chief of Fodla the noble, Aed of Oileac who died too soon. 

Popular, not forgotten, he departed from this world, 

A yew without any blemish upon him was he of the long- 
flowing hair." 

Nor must it be thought that these repeated raids 
which we have recorded in any way checked the full 
spiritual life of the nation. It is true that there was 
not that quiet serenity from which came the perfect 
beauty and art of the old Book of Kells, but a 
keenness and fire kindled the breasts of those who 
learned the New Way and the Ancient Learning. 
The schools sent forth a host of eminent men who 
over all western Europe laid the intellectual basis of 
the modern world. This view of Ireland's history 
might well be expanded almost without limit or pos- 
sibility of exaggeration. Receiving, as we saw, the 
learning and traditions of Rome while Rome was yet 
mighty and a name of old imperial renown, Ireland 



250 IRELAND. 

kept and cherished the classical wisdom and learning, 
not less than the lore of Palestine. Then the north- 
ern garrisons of Rome were beaten back, and Britain 
and Gaul alike were devastated by hordes from be- 
yond the Rhine. The first wild deluge of these fierce 
invaders was now over, and during the lull of the 
storm teachers went forth from Ireland to Scotland, 
as we have seen ; they went also to Britain ; to Bel- 
gium ; to northern, central and southern Gaul 5 and 
to countries beyond the Rhine and in the south 5 to 
Switzerland and Austria, where one Irishman gave 
his name to the Canton of St. Gall, while another 
founded the famous see of Salzburg, a rallying-point 
through all the Middle Ages. It was not only for pure 
spiritual zeal and high inspiration that these teachers 
were famed. They had not less renown for all re- 
fined learning and culture. The famous universities 
of Oxford, Paris and Pavia count among the great 
spirits at their inception men who were worthy pupils 
of the schools of Devenish and Durrow, of Bangor 
and Moville. 

We have recorded the tribute paid by Alfred the 
Saxon king to the Ireland of his day. Let us add to 
it the testimony of a great divine of France. Elias, 
Bishop of Angouleme, who died in 875, wrote thus : 



THE RAIDS OF THE NORTHMEN. 251 

" What need to speak of Ireland^ setting at nought, 
as it does, the difficulties of the sea, and coming 
ahiiost in a body to our shores, with its crowd of 
philosophers, the most intelligent of whom are sub- 
jecting themselves to a voluntary exile." 

We have traced the raids of the Northmen for 
nearly a century. They continued for a century 
and a quarter longer. Through all this time the 
course of the nation's life was as we have described 
it ; a raid from the sea, or from one of their seaboard 
fortresses by the Dark Gentiles or the Fair ; an 
assembling of the hosts of the native chieftains 
against them ; a fierce and spirited battle against the 
pirates in their mail-coats and armed with great bat- 
tle-axes. Sometimes the chosen people prevailed, 
and sometimes the Gentiles 5 but in either case the 
heads of the slain were heaped up at the feet of the 
victor, many cattle were driven away as spoil, and 
young men and maidens were taken into captivity. 
It would seem that at no time was there any union 
between the foreigners of one and another seaboard 
fortress, any more than there was unity among the 
tribes whom they raided and who defeated them in 
their turn. It was a strife of warring units, without 
fusion ; small groups round chosen leaders, and these 



252 IRELAND. 

merging for awhile in greater groups. Thus the life 
of the timesj in its warlike aspect. Its spiritual 
vigor we have sufficiently shown, not less in the in- 
spirations of the saints than in the fiery songs of the 
bards, called forth by battles and the death of kings. 
Everywhere there was fierce force and seething 
energy, bringing forth fruit of piety or prowess. 

The raiders slowly lost their grasp of the fortresses 
they had seized. Newcomers ceased to fill their 
thinning ranks. Their force w^as finally shattered at 
the battle of Clontarf, which the Annalist thus re- 
cords : '^ 1013 : The Foreigners of the west of Europe 
assembled against Brian and Maelseaclain, and they 
took with them a thousand men with coats of mail. 
A spirited, fierce, violent, vengeful and furious battle 
was fought between them, the likeness of which was 
not to be found in that time, at Cluain-tarb, the 
Lawn of the Bulls. In this battle was slain Brian 
son of Ceinneidig, monarch of Ireland, who was the 
Augustus of all the west of Europe, in the eighty- 
eighth year of his age." 

The scene of this famous conflict is on the coast, 
between Dublin and the Hill of Howth. A wide 
strand of boulders is laid bare by the receding tide, 
with green sea-grass carpeting the stones. At the 



THE RAIDS OF THE XORTHMEX. 253 

very verge of the farthest tide are two huge sand- 
banks, where the waves roar and rumble with a 
sound like the bellowing of bulls, and this tumultuous 
roaring is preserved in the name of the place unto 
this day. 



THE PASSING OF THE NORSEMEN. 



XL 

THE PASSING OF THE NORSEMEN. 
A.D. 1013-1250. 

There was, as we have seen, no ^^ Danish Con- 
quest " of Ireland, nor anything approaching a con- 
quest. What really happened during the ninth and 
tenth centuries was this : Raiders from the shores of 
the Northern seas, from the Scandinavian peninsula 
and the Western Isles of Scotland, sailed in their 
long ships among the islands of the Irish coast, look- 
ing for opportunities to plunder the treasuries of the 
religious schools, and carrying off the gold and silver 
reliquaries and manuscript cases, far more valuable 
to these heathen seamen than the Latin or Gaelic 
manuscripts they contained. 

These raids had little connection with each other 5 
they were the outcome of individual daring, mere 
boat's-crews from one or another of the Northern 
fiords. A few of the more persistent gradually grew 
reluctant to retreat with their booty to the frozen 
north, and tried to gain a footing on the shores of 

the fertile and wealthy island they had discovered. 

17 ( 257 ) 



258 IKELAND. 

They made temporary camps on the beach^ always 
beside the best harbors, and threw up earthworks 
round them, or perhaps more lasting forts of stone. 
Thus they estabhshed a secondary base for raids in- 
land, and a place of refuge whither they might carry 
the cattle, corn and captives which these raids 
brought them from the territories of the native clans. 
These camps on the shore were the germ of a chain 
of sea-ports at Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork 
and Limerick. 

From these points raiding went on, and battles 
were fought in which the raiders were as often van- 
quished as victorious. There was little union between 
the various Norse forts, and indeed we sometimes find 
them fighting valiantly among themselves. Mean- 
wdiile, the old tribal contest went on everywhere 
throughout the island. The south invaded the north 
and was presently invaded in return. The east and 
the west sent expeditions against each other. Clan 
went forth against clan, chief against chief, and cat- 
tle and captives many times changed hands. These 
captives, it would seem, became the agricultural class 
in each clan, being made to work as the penalty for 
unsuccessful fighting. The old tribal life went on un- 
broken during the whole of this period ; nor did it 



Giant Hmd and Dttukcc Castle, Co. Antrim 



THE PASSING OF THE NORSEMEN. 259 

subsequently yield to pressure from without, but 
rather passed away, during succeeding centuries, as 
the result of inward growth. Meanwhile the religious 
schools continued their work, studying Latin and 
Greek as well as the old Gaelic, and copying manu- 
scripts as before ; and one fruit of their work we see 
in the gradual conversion of the heathen Norsemen, 
who were baptized and admitted to the native church. 
The old bardic schools likewise continued, so that we 
have a Avealth of native manuscripts belonging to this 
time, embodying the finest tradition and literature of 
the earlier pagan ages. 

If the Danes and Northern raiders never conquered 
Ireland, on the other hand they never were expelled. 
Through the cessation of the original impulse of un- 
rest which brought them, they gradually ceased to 
receive accessions from the North, and at the same 
time the forces of amalgamation were slowly merging 
them into the national and tribal life of their new 
home. Their separate influence grew less and less, 
but their race continued, and continues to this day in 
the sea-ports we have named. 

We shall presently have to record another series 
of Norse inroads, this time not directly from the 
North, but mediately, through France and Britain, 



260 IRELAND. 

and we shall find that much of our subsequent his- 
tory was influenced by the new elements and prin- 
ciples then added. We shall do well^ therefore^ to 
linger for a moment before this new transition^ to 
gain a clear view of the tendencies of the epoch then 
closed, the wider significance of that chapter of our 
nation's life. 

The culture of Ireland^ during the period before 
the Northern raids, bridged over the abyss between 
the classical and the mediaeval world. During the 
whole of that period the rest of Europe was hidden 
under the clouds of the Dark Ages. Ireland stood 
alone as the one cultured nation. Receiving the 
classical learning from Roman Gaul and Britain and 
Italy, while the old world was still alive, Ireland car- 
ried that culture onward when Rome and the Roman 
Empire fell, crushed under the hordes of Northern 
barbarians : the Franks in Graul 5 the Lombards, 
Goths and Vandals in Spain and Italy 5 the Angles, 
Saxons and Danes in Britain • and the Picts and 
Northmen in the Scottish lowlands. Austria was 
meanwhile overrun by Asian nomads, the Huns and 
Magyars 5 Russia and Germany, with the Scandina- 
vian lands, were still pagan. 

Thus all Europe was submerged under a deluge of 



THE PASSING OF THE NORSEMEN. 261 

heathenism, cand the old Latin culture was swept 
away. The tradition of ancient Greece still lingered 
at Constantinople behind the wall of the Balkans, hut 
it had no influence at all on the northern nations be- 
yond the wall. Ireland was thus the one exception, 
the ark of safety for the old wisdom and beauty of 
classical days. And from Ireland, when the tide of 
heathen invasion slackened, the light of classical 
times and the spirit of the New Way went forth to 
all the nascent nations, the great pagan tribes that 
were to form the modern world. Thus Ireland was 
the bridge over the Dark Ages, the first of modern 
nations, keeping the old and blending it with the 

nev,\ 

Yet another view of Ireland's significance must 
not be forgotten. Of the original life of the great 
pagan Avorld which swept over the Roman Empire 
we know almost nothing. How much do we realize 
of the thought and genius of Aleman, Frank and 
Vandal, of Angle and Lombard and Burgundian ? 
Nothing at all. The darkness that shrouds them is 
complete. But what a contrast when we come to 
Ireland ! If we leave out the basin of the IMediter- 
ranean, with its Asian and African traditions, Ireland 
is the one European nation which has clear records 



262 lEELAND. 

of its pagan history. And how excellent that history 
was^ how full of humanity and the rich wine of life^ 
the stories of Fergus and Concobar and Cuculain, 
of Find and Ossin and Cael^ of Meave and Deirdre 
and Crede bear sufficient witness. The tide of Irish 
life to w^hich they belong, and which brought them 
forth, flowed on without break to a time so recent 
that their whole tradition has come down to us, prac- 
tically at first hand, from the heralds and bards 
themselves. Ireland is, therefore, our one doorway 
to the history of northern Europe through the long 
era of pagan times. 

That history was everywhere a fierce tale of tribal 
warfare. Its heroes are valiant fighters, keen leaders 
of forays, champion swordsmen and defenders of 
forts. The air throbs to the battle-drum, rings to the 
call of the war-trumpet. Every tribe, every clan, is 
in turn victor and vanquished, raider and victim of 
raids. Everywhere are struggle and unrest, tales of 
captivity and slaughter. 

We fall into vain lamenting over this red rapine 
and wrath, until we divine the genius and secret 
purpose of that wonderful epoch, so wholly difi'erent 
in inspiration from our own. The life of races, like 
the life of men, has its ordered stages, and none can 



THE PASSING OF THE NORSEMEN.' 263 

ripen out of season. That was the epoch of dawn- 
ing individual consciousness, when men were coming 
to a keen and vivid realization of themselves and 
their powers. Keen consciousness and strong per- 
sonal will could be developed only through struggle — 
through long ages of individual and independent 
fighting, where the best man led, and often fought 
for his right to lead with the best of his followers. 
Innumerable centers of initiative and force were 
needed, and these the old tribal life abundantly gave. 
The territory of a chief hardly stretched farther than 
he could ride in a day, so that every part of it had a 
real place in his Iieart. Nor was he the owner of 
that territory. He was simply the chosen leader of 
the men who lived there, perhaps the strongest 
among many brothers who shared it equally between 
them. If another thought himself the better man, 
the matter was forthwith decided by fighting. 

The purpose of all this was not the '^ survival of 
the fittest " in the material sense, but a harvest 
purely spiritual : the ripening of keen personal con- 
sciousness and will in all the combatants, to the full 
measure of their powers. The chiefs were the 
strongest men who set the standard and served as 
models for the rest, but that standard held the minds 



264 ' IRELAND. 

of all, the model of perfect valor was in the hearts 
of all. Thus was personal consciousness gained and 
perfected. 

If we keep this in mind as the keynote of the 
whole pagan epoch, we shall be better able to com- 
prehend the new forces which were added to that 
epoch, and which gradually transformed it. The 
greatest was the Message of the New Way. Deeds 
are stronger than words, and in the deeds of the first 
Messengers we can see the new spirit bearing fruit. 
The slave of Slemish mountain returned breathing 
not vengeance for his captivity but pity and gener- 
ous kindness towards his captors. Colum the exile 
did not seek to enlist the Picts against his native 
land, but sought rather to give the message of that 
land to the wild Pictish warriors, and to spread hu- 
mane and generous feeling among them. Thus 
was laid the foundation of a wide and universal con- 
sciousness ; a bridge was built between soul and soul. 

From the waning of the Norsemen to the first 
coming of the Normans is a period of about a hun- 
dred and fifty years. We shall best gain an insight 
into the national and religious life of that time by 
gleaning from the Annals the vivid and living pic- 
tures they never fail to give, — pictures which are the 



THE PASSING OF THE NORSEMEN. 265 

records of eye-witnesses. The strictly contemporary 
character of the records is vouched for by the cor- 
rect entry of eclipses : for instance, ^' on the day be- 
fore the calends of September, in the year 1030, 
there was a darkening of the sun." 

We see the genius of the Norsemen suffering a 
like eclipse the year before : '^ 1029 : Olaf son of 
Sitric, lord of the Foreigners, was taken prisoner by 
Matgamain Ua Riagain lord of Breag, who exacted 
twelve hundred cows as his ransom, together with 
seven score British horses, three score ounces of 
gold, the sword of Carlus, the Irish hostages, sixty 
ounces of white silver as the ransom of his fetters, 
eighty cows for word and supplication, and four 
hostages to Ua Riagain as a security of peace." 

Two generations later we read : ^^ 1088 : Tigear- 
nac Ua Briain, chief successor of Ciaran and Coman, 
died. He was a paragon of learning and history." 
The work of the paragon Tigearnac, a history of 
Ireland, is extant and writ in choice Latin, a monu- 
ment at once of the classical learning of our schools 
and of the historical spirit carried down from the 
days of the pagan heralds and bards. Tigearnac 
quotes abundantly from Greek and Latin authors, 
fortifying his conclusions with passages from Euse- 



266 lEELAND. 

biuSj OrosiuSj Julius Africanus, Josephus, Jerome 
and Bede. 

A half-century later we get a quaint and vivid 
glimpse into the religious life of the time : ^' 1145 : 
A lime-kiln which was sixty feet every way was 
erected opposite Emain Maca by Gilla Mac Liag^ the 
successor of Patrick, and Patrick's clergy in gen- 
eral.'' Here is the glow of that devotion through 
work which gave us the great mediaeval cathedrals, 
the fervor and artistic power, which in former times 
adorned the Gospels of the Book of Kells, now work- 
ing out its way in lasting stone. The date of this 
lime-kiln lies indeed just half-way between the con- 
secration of Cormac's Chapel at Cashel in 1134 and 
the foundation of the beautiful cathedral beside it by 
the lord of Tuaid-Muma or Thomond in 1152. Cor- 
mac's Chapel is a very pure example of native style, 
untouched by foreign or continental influence. 

We can divine the figure of one of the great men 
of the religious world in the records for the year 
1148: ^^ A synod was convened at Saint Patrick's 
Isle by Maelmaedog, called also Malachias, successor 
of Patrick, at which were present fifteen bishops and 
two hundred priests, to establish rules and morals for 
all. Maelmaedog by the advice of the synod went 



Rock of Cashed Rtsins of Old Cathedral, 
Kingf Cormac's Chapel and Round Tower 



THE PASSING OF THE NORSEMEN. 267 

a second time to Rome, to confer with the successor 
of Peter." A few months later we read this record 
of his death : ^^ Malachias, that is, Maehnaedog Ua 
Morgair, Archbishop of the chair of Patrick, chief 
head of the piety of the West of Europe, legate of 
the successor of Peter, the only head whom the Irish 
and the Foreigners obeyed, chief paragon of wisdom 
and piety, a brilliant lamp which illumined territories 
and churches by preaching and good works, faithful 
shepherd of the church in general, — after having 
ordained bishops and priests and persons of every 
degree ; after having consecrated many churches and 
cemeteries ; after having performed every ecclesias- 
tical work throughout Ireland ; after having be- 
stowed jewels and food upon the mighty and the 
needy j after having founded churches and monas- 
teries, for by him was repaired in Ireland every 
church which had been consigned to decay and neg- 
lect, and they had been neglected fiom times re- 
mote 5 — after leaving every rule and every good 
moral in the churches of Ireland in general ; after 
having been the second time in the legateship 5 after 
having been fourteen years in the primacy ; and 
after the fifty-fourth year of his age, resigned his 
spirit to heaven on the second day of November, and 



268 lEELAND. 

was buried in the monastery of Saint Bernard at 
Claravallis in France." 

This is the same worthy under whose influence 
was built the great lime-kiln over against the fort of 
Emain^ where Concobar once ruled. Even from 
the scant notices which we have quoted he stands 
forth clear and strong^ full of spiritual and moral 
vigor, a great man in every sense, and one in whom 
we divine a lovable and admirable spirit. At that 
time there were four archbishoprics in Ireland, at 
Armagh, Cashel, Dublin and Tuam ; the primacy 
belonging to the first, as the seat of the Damliag 
Mor or Great Stone Church, built by Saint Patrick 
himself. A sentence in the Annals shows how the 
revenues were raised : "A horse from every chief- 
tain, a sheep from every hearth.'^ A few passages 
like these are enough to light up whole epochs of 
that mediaeval time, and to show us how sympathetic, 
strong and pure that life was, in so many ways. 

We find, meanwhile, that the tribal struggle con- 
tinued as of old : ^' 1154 : Toirdealbac Ua Concobar 
brought a fleet round Ireland northwards, and plun- 
dered Tir-Conaill and Inis Eogain. The Cinel Eogain 
sent to hire the fleets of the Hebrides, Arran, Can- 
tyre and Man, and the borders of Alba in general, 



THE PASSING OF THE NORSEMEN. 269 

and they fell in with the other fleet and a naval bat- 
tle was fiercely and spiritedly fought between them. 
They continued the conflict from the beginning of 
the day till evening, but the foreign fleet was de- 
feated." This records perhaps the only lesson learned 
from the Norsemen, the art of naval warfare. We 
may regret that the new knowledge was not turned 
to a more national end. 

Four years later, '^ a wicker bridge was made by 
Ruaidri Ua Concobar at Athlone, for the purpose of 
making incursions into Meath. There was a pacific 
meeting between Ruaidri Ua Concobar and Tigear- 
nan, and they made peace, and took mutual oaths 
before sureties and relics." This is our first meeting 
with a king as remarkable in his way as the great 
archbishop his contemporary. Ruaidri descendant 
of Concobar was king of Connacht, holding the 
land from the western ocean up to the great frontier 
of the river Shannon. Eager to plunder his neigh- 
bors and bring back '^ a countless number of cows," 
he undertook this wonderful work, a pile bridge 
across the river, seemingly the first of its kind to be 
built there, and in structure very like the famous 
bridge which Csesar built across the Rhine, — or Hke 
many of the wooden bridges across the upper streams 



270 IRELAND. 

of the Danube at the present day. We shall record 
a few more of this enterprishig and large-minded 
prince's undertakings^ following the course of the 
years. 

In parenthesis, we find a clue to the standard of 
value of the time in this record : ^^ 1161 : The visi- 
tation of Osraige was made by Flaitbeartac, succes- 
sor of Colum Kill ; the tribute due to him was seven 
score oxen, but he selected, as a substitute for these, 
four hundred and twenty ounces of pure silver." The 
price of an ox was, therefore, three ounces of silver. 
The old-time barter, an echo of which still lingers in 
the word '^ pecuniary " from the Latin name for 
"" cattle," was evidently yielding to the more conve- 
nient form of exchange through the medium of the 
metals, which are easily carried and divided, and 
suffer no detriment from the passage of time. With 
the wicker bridge and the lime-kiln, this change from 
a tribute in cattle to a payment in silver may re- 
mind us that we are on the threshold of the modern 
world. 

In 1162 we find the king of Connacht in a new. 
adventure : ^^ An army was led by Muirceartac Ua 
Lochlain, accompanied by the people of the north of 
Ireland, the men of Meath, and a battalion of the 



THE PASSING OP^ THE NORSEMEN. 271 

Connacht men, to At-Cliat, to lay siege to the For- 
eigners and the Irish j but Ua Lochlain retired with- 
out battle or hostages after having plundered the 
Fair Strangers. A peace was afterwards concluded 
between the Foreigners and the Gaels ; and six score 
ounces of gold were given by the Foreigners to Ua 
Lochlain, and five score ounces of gold were paid by 
Diarmaid Ua Maelseaclain to Ruaidri Ua Concobar 
for West Meath.'^ Here again we see the *^ count- 
less cows " giving place to counted gold in the levy- 
ing of tribute. We note also, in the following year, 
that ^^ a lime-kiln measuring seventy feet every way 
was made by the successor of Colum Kill and the 
clergy of Colum Kill in twenty days," in evident 
emulation of the work of the Armagh see. 

The synod already recorded as having been held in 
the little island of Saint Patrick off the Dublin coast, 
gives us a general view of the church at that time, 
the number of sees and parishes, and the spirit ani- 
mating them. We gain a like view of the civil state 
in the record of a great assembly convened in 1167 
by the energetic and enterprising Connacht king : 
^' A great meeting was called together by Ruaidri Ua 
Concobar and the chiefs of Leat Cuin, both lay and 
ecclesiastic, and the chiefs of At-boy, — the Yellow 



272 IRELAND. 

Ford across one of the streams of the Boyne in 
Meath. To it came the successor of Patrick^ the 
archbishop of Connacht, the archbishop of Leinster, 
the lord of Breifne, the lord of Oirgialla, the king of 
Ulster, the king of Tara, and Ragnall son of Ragnall, 
lord of the Foreigners. The whole of their gather- 
ing and assemblage was 19,000 horsemen, of which 
6000 were Connachtmen, 4000 with the lord of 
. Breifne, 2000 with the king of Tara, 4000 with the 
lord of Oirgialla and the king of Ulster, 2000 with 
the chief of Ui-Failge, and 1000 with the Foreigners 
of At-Cliat. They passed many good resolutions at 
this meeting, respecting veneration for churches and 
clerics, and control of tribes and territories, so that 
women used to traverse Ireland alone ; and a restora- 
tion of his prey was made by the chief of the Ui- 
Failge at the hands of the kings aforesaid. They 
afterwards separated in peace and amity, without 
battle or controversy, or without anyone complaining 
of another at that meeting, in consequence of the 
prosperousness of the king, who had assembled these 
chiefs with their forces at one place." 

Here is a foreshadowing of the representative as- 
semblies of our modern times, and the same wise spirit 
is shown in another event of the same year, thus re- 



THE PASSING OF THE NORSEMEN. 273 

corded : '^ A hosting and a mustering of the men of 
Ireland, with their chieftains, by Ruaidri Ua Conco- 
bar ; thither came the lord of Deas-muma, the lord 
of Tiiaid-muma, the king of Meath, the lord of Oir- 
gialla and all the chieftains of Leinster. They arrived 
in Tir-Eogain, and allotted the part of it north of 
Slieve GuUion,— now the eastern part of Derry, — to 
Nial Ua Lochlain for two hostages, and allotted the 
part of the country of the clan to the south of the 
mountain to Aed Ua Neill for two other hostages. 
Then the men of Ireland returned back southwards 
over Slieve Fuaid, through Tir-Eogain and Tir-Con- 
naill, and over Assaroe — the Cataract of the Erne — 
and Ruaidri Ua Concobar escorted the lord of Deas- 
muma with his forces southwards through Tuaid- 
muma as far as Cnoc-Aine — in Limerick — and the 
lord of Deas-muma departed with gifts of many 
jewels and riches." 

While the Norse foreigners were a power at Dub- 
lin, Waterford, Cork and Limerick, there were not 
wanting occasions when one of the native tribes 
called on them for aid against another tribe, sharing 
with them the joys of victory or the sorrow of defeat, 
and, where fortune favored, dividing with them the 

" countless cows " taken in a raid. In like manner 

18 



274 lEELAND. 

the Cinel Eogain, as we saw, hired the fleet of the 
Norsemen of the Western Isles of Scotland to help 
them to resist a raid of the Connachtmen. The ex- 
ample thus set was followed repeatedly in the coming 
years, and we find mention of Flemings, Welshmen 
and Saxons brought over to take one side or other 
in the tribal wars. 

In the same year that saw the two assemblings of 
the chieftains under Ruaidri Ua Concobar, another 
chieftain, Diarmaid son of Murcad brought in from 
"• the land of the Saxons," as it was called, one of 
these bands of foreign mercenaries, for the most part 
Welsh descendants of the old Gaelic Britons, to aid 
him in his contest for ^^ the kingdom of the sons of 
Ceinnsealaig." Two years later, Euaidri Ua Con- 
cobar ^^ granted ten cows every year from himself 
and from every king that should follow him for ever, 
to the Lector of Ard Maca, in honor of Patrick, 
to instruct the youths of Ireland and Alba in Liter- 
ature." 

For the next year, 1170, we find this record : 
" Robert Mac Stepni and Ricard Mac Gillebert — larl 
Strangbow — came from Saxonland into Erin with a 
numerous force, and many knights and archers, in 
the army of the son of Murcad, to contest Leinster 



THE PASSING OF THE NORSEMEN. 275 

for him^ and to disturb the Gaels of Erin in general; 
and the son of Murcad gave his daughter to larl 
Strangbow for coming into his army. They took 
Loch Garman — Wexford — and Port Lairge — Water- 
ford — by force ; and they took Gillemaire the officer 
of the fortress and Ua Faelain lord of the Deisi and 
his son, and they killed seven hundred persons there. 
Domnall Breagac with numbers of the men of Breag 
fell by the Leinstermen on that occasion. An army 
was led by Ruaidri Ua Concobar with the lord of 
Breifne and the lord of Oirgialla against Leinster and 
the Foreigners aforesaid, and there was a challenge 
of battle between them for the space of three days." 
This contest was indecisive. The most noteworthy 
event of the battle was the plundering and slaughter 
of the Danes of At-Cliat by the newcomers under 
larl Strangbow. The Danes had long before this 
given up their old pagan faith, converted by their 
captives and their Gaelic neighbors. Christ Church 
Cathedral in At-Cliat or Dublin was founded early in 
the preceding century by Sitric son of Olaf, king of 
the Danes of Dublin, and Donatus the first Danish 
bishop ; but the oldest part of the present structure 
belongs to the time we are now speaking of: the 
close of the twelfth century. The transepts with 



276 IRELAND. 

their chevron mouldings and the principal doorway 
are of that period^ and we may regard them as an 
offering in expiation of the early heathen raids on 
Lambay^ Saint Patrick's Isle^ and the early schools 
of the church. 

The ambitious Diarmaid Mac Murcad died shortly 
after the last battle we have recorded^ " perishing 
without sacrament^ of a loathsome disease f' a mani- 
fest judgment^ in the eyes of the Chronicler^ for the 
crime of bringing the Normans to Ireland. In the 
year that saw his death, ^^ Henry the Second, king 
of the Saxons and duke of the Normans, came to 
Ireland with two hundred and forty ships." He 
established a footing in the land, as one of many con- 
testing powers, but the immediate results of his 
coming were slight. This we can judge from the 
record of three years later : ^^ A brave battle was 
fought by the Foreigners under larl Strangbow and 
the Gaels under Ruaidri Ua Concobar at Thurles, in 
which the Foreigners were finally defeated by dint 
of lighting. Seventeen hundred of the Foreigners 
were slain in the battle, and only a few of them sur- 
vived with the larl, who proceeded in sorrow to his 
home at Port Lairge — Waterford.'' larl Strangbow 
died two years later at Dublin. 



THE PASSING OF THE NORSEMEN. 277 

Norman warriors continue to appear during the 
succeeding years, fighting against the native chief- 
tains and against each other, while the native chief- 
tains continue their own quarrels, just as in the days 
of the first Norse raids. Thus in the year of larl 
Strangbow's death, Kells was laid waste by the For- 
eigners in alliance with the native Ui-Briain, while 
later in the same year the Foreigners were driven 
from Limerick by Domnall Ua-Briain, who laid siege 
to them and forced them to surrender. 

Two years later, four hundred and fifty of the fol- 
lowers of De Courcy, another great Norman war- 
rior, were defeated at Maghera Conall in Louth, some 
being drowned in the river, while others were slain 
on the battlefield. Li the same year De Courcy was 
again defeated with great slaughter in Down, and 
escaped severely wounded to Dublin. For At-Cliat, 
from being a fortress of the Danes and Norsemen, 
was gradually becoming a Norman town. The door- 
way of Christ Church Cathedral, which dates from 
about this time, is of pure Norman style. 

Li 1186 we find a son of the great Ruaidri Ua Con- 
cobar paying a band of these same Foreigners three 
thousand cows as " wages," for joining him in some 
plundering expedition against his neighbors. The 



278 IRELAND. 

genius of strife reigned supreme, and the newcomers 
were as completely under its sway as the old clans- 
men. Just as we saw the Dark Norsemen of the 
ninth century coming in their long ships to plunder 
the Fair Norsemen of At-Cliat, and the Fair Norse- 
men not less vigorously retaliating, so now we find 
wars breaking out among the Normans who followed 
in the steps of the Norsemen. In 1205 the Norman 
chieftain who held a part of Meath under his armed 
sway, and who had already built a strong castle at 
Kells, was at war with the De Bermingham family, 
who at that time held the old Danish stronghold of 
Limerick. Two years later another contest broke 
out between the De Berminghams and William 
Marescal, and yet another struggle between Hugo de 
Lacy and De Bermingham, very disastrous to the re- 
tainers of the latter, for the Chronicler tells us that 
" nearly all his people were ruined." 

Thus the old life of tribal struggle went on. The 
country was wealthy, full of cattle and herds, silver 
and gold, stored corn and fruit, rich dyed stuffs and 
ornaments. The chieftains and provincial kings lived 
in state within their forts, with their loyal warriors 
around them, feasting and making merry, and the 
bards and heralds recited for their delight the great 



THE PASSING OF THE NORSEMEN. 279 

deeds of the men of old, their forefathers ; the 
harpers charmed or saddened them with the world- 
old melodies that Deirdre had played for Naisi, that 
Meave had listened to, that Crede sang for her poet 
lover. 

The life of the church was not less vigorous and 
vital. There are many churches and cathedrals of 
that period of transition, as of the epoch before the 
first Norman came, w^hich show the same fervor and 
devotion, the same faith made manifest by works of 
beauty. In truth no country in the world has so full 
and rich a record in lasting stone, beginning with the 
dwellings of the early saints w^ho had seen the first 
Messenger face to face, and passing down through 
age after age, showing the life and growth of the 
faith from generation to generation. 

The schools, as w^e saw, carried on the old classical 
tradition, bringing forth monuments like the Annals 
of Tigearnac ; and there was the same vigor and 
vital force in every part of the nation's life. The 
coming of the Normans changed this in no essential 
regard. There was something added in architecture, 
the Norman modifying the old native style ; the cas- 
tle and keep gradually taking the place of the earth- 
work and stone fort. And in the tenure of land 



280 IRELAND. 

certain new principles were introduced. But the 
sum of national life went on unbroken^ less modi- 
fied^ probably, than it had been by the old Norse 
raids. 



THE NORMANS. 



XII. 

THE NORMANS. 
A.D. 1250-1603. 

When summing up each epoch of Irish history, 
we may find both interest and profit in considering 
what the future of the land and the people might 
have been had certain new elements not been added. 
Thus we may try to picture to ourselves what would 
have been our history had our life moved forward 
from the times of Cuculain and Concobar, of Find 
and Cormac son of Art, without that transforming 
power which the fifth century brought. We may 
imagine the tribal strife and stress growing keener 
and fiercer, till the whole life and strength of the 
people was fruitlessly consumed in plundering and 
destroying. 

Or we may imagine an unbroken continuance of 
the epoch of saintly aspiration, the building of 
churches, the illumination of holy books, so dividing 
the religious from the secular community as almost 
to make two nations in one, a nation altogether ab- 
sorbed in the present life, with another nation living 

(283) 



284 lEELAND. 

in its midst, but dwelling wholly in the thought of the 
other world. Keligion would have grown to super- 
stition, ecstasy would have ruled in the hearts of the 
religious devotees, weakening their hold on the real, 
and wafting them away into misty regions of para- 
dise. We should have had every exaggeration of 
ascetic practice, hermitages multiplying among the 
rocks and islands of the sea, men and women tortur- 
ing their bodies for the saving of their souls. 

The raids of the Norsemen turned the strong aspi- 
rations of the religious schools into better channels, 
bringing them to a sense of their identity with the 
rest of the people, compelling them to bear their part 
of the burden of calamity and strife. The two na- 
tions which might have wandered farther and farther 
apart were thus welded into one, so that the spirit of 
religion became what it has ever since remained, 
something essential and inherent in the life of the 
whole people. 

After the waning of the Norsemen, a period opened 
full of great national promise in many ways. We 
see the church strengthened and confirmed, putting 
forth its power in admirable works of art, churches 
and cathedrals full of the fire and fervor of devotion, 
and conceived in a style truly national, with a sense 



Dunlitce Castle 




J?v«i«ah 










THE NORMANS. 285 

of beauty altogether its own. Good morals and gen- 
erous feeling mark the whole life of the church 
through this period, and the great archbishop whose 
figure we have drawn in outline is only one of many 
fine and vigorous souls among his contemporaries. 

The civil life of the nation, too, shows signs of sin- 
gular promise at the same time, a promise embodied 
in the person of the king of Connacht, Ruaidri Ua 
Concobar, some of whose deeds we have recorded. 
There was a clearer sense of national feeling and 
national unity than ever before, a recognition of the 
method of conciliation and mutual understanding, 
rather than the old appeal to armed force, as under 
the genius of tribal strife. We see Ruaidri convok- 
ing the kings, chieftains and warriors to a solemn 
assembly, presided over by the king and the arch- 
bishops of the realm, and '^ passing good resolutions '^ 
for the settlement of religious and civil matters, and 
the better ordering of territories and tribes. That 
assembly was convened a half-century before the 
famous meeting between King John and his barons, 
at Runnymead among the Windsor meadows ; and 
the seed then sown might have brought forth fruit as 
full of promise and potency for the future as the 
Great Charter itself. The contrast between these 



286 IRELAND. 

two historic assemblies is instructive. In the one 
case^ we havs a provincial king from the rich and 
beautiful country beyond the Shannon, gradually 
gaining such influence over the kings of the prov- 
inces and the chieftains of the tribes that he had 
come to be regarded as in a sense the overlord of the 
whole land, not through inherent sovreignty or di- 
vine right, but first as the chosen chief of his own 
tribe, and then as the elect of the whole body of 
chieftains, first among his peers. In this character 
we see Ruaidri settling disputes between two sections 
of the great Northern clan, and fixing a boundary 
between them •, giving presents to the chieftains of 
the south for their support in this diflScult decision, 
and exercising a beneficent influence over the Avhole 
people, a moral sway rather than a sovereign and 
despotic authority. It is pleasant to find the same 
king establishing a college foundation for the instruc- 
tion of the youth of Ireland and Scotland in litera- 
ture. 

This is what we have on the one hand. On the 
other, we have the Norman king surrounded by his 
barons, over whom he claimed, but could not exer- 
cise, despotic authority 5 and the Norman barons tak- 
ing advantage of his necessity to extort promises 



THE NOKMANS. 287 

and privileges for their own order rather than for the 
whole people. For w^e must remember that the 
Angles and Saxons had been reduced by conquest to 
a servile condition, from which they never wholly 
recovered. The ruling classes of Britain at the 
present day are at least nominal descendants of those 
same Norman barons ; and between thom and the 
mass of the people — the sons of the Saxons and 
Angles — there is still a great gulf lixed. It is quite 
impossible for one of the tillers of the soil to stand on 
a footing of equality with the old baronial class, and 
the gulf has widened, rather than closed, since the 
battle of Hastings and the final overthrow of the 
Saxon power. 

We see here the full contrast between the ideal of 
kingship in Ireland and that which grew up among 
the Norman conquerors of the Saxons. The Irish 
king was always in theory and often in fact a real 
representative, duly elected by the free suffrage of 
his tribesmen ; he was not owner of the tribal land, 
as the duke of the Normans was ; he was rather the 
leader of the tribe, chosen to guard their common 
possessions. The communal system of Ireland stands 
here face to face with the feudal system of tlie 
Normans. 



288 lEELAND. 

It would be a study of great interest to consider 
what form of national life might have resulted in 
Ireland from the free growth of this principle of 
communal chieftainship. There are many analogies 
in other lands, all of which point to the likelihood of 
a slow emergence of the hereditary principle 5 a 
single family finally overtopping the whole nation. 
Had this free development taken place, we might 
have had a strong and vigorous national evolu- 
tion, an abundant flowering of all our energies and 
powers through the Middle Ages, a rich and vigorous 
production of art and literature, equal to the wonder- 
ful blossoming of genius in the Val d^Arno and Ven- 
ice and Rome ; but we should have missed something 
much greater than all these ; something towards 
which events and destiny have been leading us, 
•through the whole of the Middle Ages and modern 
times. 

From this point forward we shall have to trace 
the working of that destiny, not manifested in a free 
blossoming and harvesting of our national life, but 
rather in the suppression and involution of our 
powers J in a development arrested by pressure from 
without and kept thus suspended until the field was 
ready for its real work. Had our fate been other- 



THE NORMANS. 289 

wise, we might now be looking back to a great 
mediaeval past, as Spain and Austria look back ; it is 
fated that we shall look not back but forwards, brought 
as we are by destiny into the midst of the modern 
world, a people with energy unimpaired, full of 
vigorous vital force, uncorrupted by the weakening 
influence of wealth, taught by our own history the 
measureless evil of oppression, and therefore cured 
once for all of the desire to dominate others. Finally, 
the intense inner life towards which we have been 
led by the checking of our outward energies has 
opened to us secrets of the invisible world which are 
of untold value, of measureless promise for all 
future time. 

We have, therefore, to trace the gradual involu- 
tion of our national life ; the checking and restrain- 
ing of that free development which would assuredly 
have been ours, had our national life grown forward 
unimpeded and uninfluenced from without, from the 
days when the Norse power waned. The first great 
check to that free development came from the feudal 
system, the principle of which was brought over by 
Robert FitzStephen, Richard FitzGilbert, the De 
Courcys, the De Lacys, the De Berminghams and 

their peers, whose coming we have recorded. They 

19 



290 IKELAND. 

added new elements to the old straggle of district 
against district, tribe against tribe, but they added 
something more enduring — an idea and principle des- 
tined almost wholly to supplant the old communal 
tenure which was the genius of the native polity. 
The outward and visible sign of that new principle 
was manifested in the rapid growth of feudal castles, 
with their strong keeps, at every point of vantage 
gained by the Norman lords. They were lords of 
the land, not leaders of the tribe, and their lordship 
was fitly symbolized in the great gloomy towers of 
stone that everywhere bear witness to their strength, 
almost untouched as they are by the hand of time. 

When the duke of the Normans overthrew the 
Saxon king at Hastings, he became real owner of the 
soil of England. His barons and lords held their es- 
tates from him, in return for services to be rendered 
to him direct. To reward them for supporting him, 
first in that decisive battle, and then in whatever 
contests he might engage in, they were granted the 
right to tax certain tracts of country, baronies, earl- 
doms, or counties, according to the title they bore. 
This tax was exacted first in service, then in pro- 
duce, and finally in coin. It was the penalty of con- 
quest, the tribute of the subject Saxons and Angles. 



THE NORMANS. 291 

There was no pretence of a free contract 5 no pre- 
tence that the. baron returned to the farmer or hiborer 
an equal value for the tax thus exacted. It was tribute 
pure and simple, with no claim to be anything else. 
That system of tribute has been consecrated in the 
land tenure of England, and the class enriched by that 
tribute, and still bearing the territorial titles which 
are its hall-mark, has always been, as it is to-day, 
the dominant class alike in political and social life. 
In other words, the Norman subjugation of Saxon and 
Angle is thoroughly effective at this moment. 

This principle of private taxation, as a right 
granted by the sovereign, came over to Ireland with 
the De Courcys and De Lacys and their like. But 
it by no means overspread Ireland in a single tide, as 
in England, after Hastings was lost and won. Its 
progress was slow ; so slow, indeed, that the old com- 
munal system lingers here and there at the present 
day. The communal chiefs lived their lives side by 
side with the Norman barons, fighting now with the 
barons, now with each other ; and the same generous 
rivalry, as we have seen, led to abundant fighting 
among the barons also. The principle of feudal 
ownership was working its way, however. We shall 
see later how great was its ultimate influence, — not 



292 lEELAND. 

so much by direct action^ as in the quite modern re- 
action which its abuse provoked — a reaction from 
which have been evolved certain principles of value 
to the whole world. 

Leaving this force to work its way through the 
centuries^ we may turn now to the life of the times as 
it appeared to the men and women who lived in 
them^ and as they themselves have recorded it. We 
shall find fewer great personalities ; nor should we 
expect this to be otherwise, if we are right in think- 
ing that the age of struggle, with its efflorescence of 
great persons, had done its work, and was already 
giving way before the modern spirit, with its genius 
for the universal rather than the personal. We shall 
have contests to chronicle during the following cen- 
turies, whether engendered within or forced upon us 
from without j but they are no longer the substance 
of our history. They are only the last clouds of a 
departing storm ; the mists before the dawn of the 
modern world. 

The most noteworthy of these contests in the early 
Norman age was the invasion under Edward Bruce, 
brother of the Scottish king, who brought a great 
fleet and army to Larne, then as now the Irish port 
nearest to the northern kingdom. The first sufferers 



THE NORMANS. 293 

bj this invasion were the Normans of Meath, and we 
presently find these same Normans allied with Feid- 
limid son of Aed Ua Concobar and the Connachtmen, 
fighting side by side against the common foe. This 
was in 1315; two years later Robert Bruce joined 
his brother, and it was not till 1319 that Edward 
Bruce finally fell at Dundalk, ^' and no achievement 
had been performed in Ireland for a long time be- 
fore/' the Chronicler tells us, '^ from which greater 
benefit had accrued to the country than from this ; 
for during the three and a half years that Edward 
had spent in it, a universal famine prevailed to such 
a degree that men were wont to devour one another." 

A ray of light is thus shed on the intellectual and 
moral life of the time : ^' 1398 : Garrett Earl of Des- 
mond — or Deas-muma — a cheerful and courteous 
man, who excelled all the Normans and many of the 
Irish in the knowledge of the Irish language, poetry, 
history and other learning, died after the victory of 
peace." We see that the Normans are already fallen 
under the same influence of assimilation which had 
transformed the Danes two hundred years before. 

A half-century later, we get a vigorous and lurid 
picture of the survival of the old tribal strife : ^^ 1454 : 
Donell O'Donell was installed in the lordship of Tyr- 



294 lEELAND. 

connell, in opposition to Rury O'Donell. Not long 
after this^ Donell was treacherously taken captive 
and imprisoned in the castle of Inis — an island in 
Lough S willy. As soon as Rury received tidings of 
thisj he mustered an army thither^ and proceeded to 
demolish the castle in which Donell was imprisoned 
with a few men to guard him. Rury and his army 
burned the great door of the castle^ and set the stairs 
on fire ; whereupon Donell^ thinking that his life 
would be taken as soon as the army should reach the 
castle^ — it being his dying request, as he thought — 
entreated that he might be loosed from his fetters, as 
he deemed it a disgrace to be killed while imprisoned 
and fettered. His request was granted, and he was 
loosed from his fetters 5 after which he ascended to 
the battlements of the castle, to view the motions of 
the invading army. And he saw Rury beneath, with 
eyes flashing enmity, and waiting until the fire 
should subside, that he might enter and kill him. 
Donell then, finding a large stone by his side, hurled 
it directly down upon Rury, so that it fell on the crest 
of his helmet, on the top of his head, and crushed it, 
so that he instantly died. The invading forces were 
afterwards defeated, and by this throw Donell saved 
his own life and acquired the lordship of Tyrconnell." 



TPIE NORMANS. 295 

There is a whole historical romance in that single 
picture ; the passage could not easily be surpassed 
for direct and forcible narrative. A few years later, 
we come on one of the most amusing things in the 
whole series of annals, a perfect contrast to the grim 
ferocity of the feud of the O'Donells. In 1-1:72 '^ a 
wonderful animal was sent to Ireland by the king of 
England. She resembled a mare, and was of a yellow 
color, with the hoofs of a cow, a long neck, a very large 
head, a large tail, which was ugly and scant of hair. 
She had a saddle of her own. Wheat and salt were 
her usual food. She used to draw the largest sled- 
burden behind her. She used to kneel when passing 
under any doorway, however high, and also to let her 
rider mount." It is evident that the Gaelic language 
in the fifteenth century lacked a name for the camel. 
The same year, we are told, '^ the young earl of Des- 
mond was set at liberty by the MacCarthys ; he dis- 
abled Garrett, son of the earl of Kildare." 

Here is another passage which vies in vividness 
and force with the story of the death of Rury 
O'Donell: "1557: Two spies, Donough and Mau- 
rice by name, entered the camp of John O'Neill by 
Lough Swilly, and mingled with the troop without 
being noticed j for in consequence of the number and 



296 IRELAND. 

variety of the troops who were there^ it was not easy 
for them to discriminate between one another^ even 
if it were day, except by recognizing their chieftains 
alone. The two persons aforesaid proceeded from 
one fire to another, until they came to the great 
central fire, which was at the entrance of the son of 
O'Neill's tent 5 and a huge torch, thicker than a man's 
body, was continually flaming at a short distance from 
the fire, and sixty grim and redoubtable warriors 
with sharp, keen axes, terrible and ready for action, 
and sixty stern and terrific Scots, with massive, broad 
and heavy striking swords in their hands, ready to 
strike and parry, were guarding the son of O'Neill. 
When the time came for the troops to dine, and food 
was divided and distributed among them, the two 
spies whom we have mentioned stretched out their 
hands to the distributor like the rest, and that which 
fell to their share was a measure of meal, and a suit- 
able complement of butter. With this testimony of 
their adventure they returned to their own people." 

Here again, what a picture of the camp-life of the 
age ; the darkness of night, the great central fire with 
the sixty grim and redoubtable warriors armed with 
keen axes, terrible and ready for action, and the sixty 
stern and terrific Scots with their massive swords. 



THE NORMANS. 297 

The admirable manner of the narrative is as striking 
as the tierce vigor of the life portrayed. So we 
might go on, adding red pages of martial records, but 
in reality adding nothing to our understanding of the 
times. The life of the land was as full and abundant 
as of old, and one outcome of that life we may touch 
on rather more at length. 

We have said much of the old religious schools of 
Ireland, with their fine and vigorous intellectual life, 
which did so much to carry forward the torch of cul- 
ture to our modern world. For nearly seven hun- 
dred years these great schools seem to have developed 
wholly along indigenous lines, once they had accepted 
the body of classical culture from the Roman Empire, 
then tottering to its fall. The full history of that 
remarkable chapter in the Avorld's spiritual life has 
yet to be written ; but this we can foretell, that when 
written, it will abound with rich material and ample 
evidence of a sound and generous culture, inspired 
throughout with the fervor of true faith. 

About the time Avhen the Norman warriors began 
to mingle wdth the fighting chieftains of the old native 
tribes, a change came over the religious history of 
the country. After sending forth men of power and 
light to the awakening lands of modern Europe, Ire- 



298 lEELAND. 

land began to receive a returning tide^ to reap a har- 
vest from these same lands, in the friars and abbots 
of the great Continental orders founded by men like 
Saint Bernard, Saint Dominick and Saint Francis of 
Assisi. A change in the church architecture of the 
period visibly records this spiritual change 5 conti- 
nental forms appear, beginning with the rounded 
arches of the Normans, and passing gradually into 
the various forms of pointed arches which we know 
as Gothic. Very beautiful Abbeys belonging to this 
epoch remain everywhere throughout the island, 
making once more evident — what strikes us at every 
point of our study — that no country in the world is 
so rich in these lasting records of every step of our 
national life, whether in pagan or Christian times. 

We have said much of the archaic cromlechs. We 
have recorded the great Pyramids by the Boyne tell- 
ing us of the genius of the De Danaans. The Mile- 
sian epoch is even now revealed to us in the great 
earthworks of Tara and Emain and Cruacan. We 
can, if we wish, climb the mound of heaped-up earth 
where was the fortress of Cuculain, or look over the 
green plains from the hill of Find. 

In like manner, there is an unbroken series of 
monuments through the early Christian epoch, be- 



Meliffont Abbey, Co. Louth 



THE NORMANS. 299 

ginning with the oratories of the sixth centiiry, con- 
tinuing through the early churches of Killiney, Mo- 
ville, Dalkey, Glendalough and Monasterboice, from 
before the Norse inroads 5 followed by the epoch of 
Round Towers, or protected belfries, with their 
churches, nearly three score of these Round Towers 
remaining in fair preservation, while many are per- 
fect from base to apex ; and culminating in Cormac's 
chapel and the beautiful group of buildings on Cashel 
Rock. For the next period, the age of transition 
after the waning of the Norsemen and the coming of 
the first Normans, we have many monuments in the 
Norman style, like the door of Christ Church Cathe- 
dral in Dublin, with its romance of Danish conversion 
and Norse religious fervor. 

Finally, we come to the age whose progress we 
have just recorded, which covers the whole of the 
Middle Ages. For this period, which was for Ireland 
an epoch of foreign influence much more than of 
foreign rule, we have many beautiful Abbeys, built 
for those foreign orders whose coming was in a 
sense a return tide, a backward flow of the old mis- 
sionary spirit which went forth from Ireland over 
nascent modern Europe. The life of these abbeys 
was full of rich imaginative and religious power 5 it 



300 IKELAND. 

abounded in urbanity and ripe culture of a some- 
what selfish and exclusive type. Yet we cannot but 
feel a limitless affection and sympathy for the abbots 
and friars of the days of old who have left us such a 
rich heritage of beauty and grace. 

All these abbeys seem to have been formed on a 
single plan : a cruciform church symbolized the 
source of all their inspiration^ its choir extending to- 
wards the east, whence the Light had come ; the 
nave, or main body of the church, was entered by the 
great western door, and the arms of the cross, the 
transepts, extended to the north and south. Here is 
a very beautiful symbol, a true embodiment of the 
whole spirit and inspiration of the monastic orders. 
From one of the transepts a side door generally led 
to the domestic buildings, the dormitory, the refec- 
tory, the chapter house, where the friars assembled 
in conclave under the presidency of the abbot. There 
were lesser buildings, store-rooms, granaries, work- 
rooms, but these were the kernel of the establish- 
ment. The church was the center of all things, and 
under its floor the friars Avere at last laid to rest, 
while brother friars carved tombs for them and epi- 
taphs, adding a new richness of decoration to the 
already beautiful church. 



THE NORMANS. 301 

We may record a few of these old foundations, 
showing at the same time the present state of the old 
abbey buildings. At Newtown on the northern bank 
of the Boyne, about a mile below Trim, Simon Roch- 
fort founded an abbey for the Augustinian Canons in 
1206, dedicating it to Saint Peter and Saint Paul. 
The capitals of the pillars in the church, the vaulting 
of the roof and the shafts of the arches which sup- 
ported the tower are full of singular grace and 
beauty, even now when the abbey is roofless and in 
part destroyed, while the corbels and mouldings round 
the lancet-shaped windows are full of luxuriant fancy 
and charm. We can divine from them the full and 
rich spiritual life which brought forth such exquisite 
flowers of beauty ; we can imagine the fine aroma of 
fervor and saintly peace which brooded over these 
consecrated aisles. 

A few miles below Trim, and an equal distance 
from the old royal palace of Tara, Bective Abbey 
stands on the northern bank of the Boyne, with a 
square, battlemented tower overshadowing its clois- 
tered quadrangle. The cinque-foil cloister arches, 
the fiUets that bind the clustered shafts of the pillars, 
the leaf ornaments of the plinths at their base all 
speak of a luxuriant sense of beauty and grace, of a 



302 IRELAND. 

spirit of pure and admirable artistic work. This rich 
creative power thus breaking forth in lovely handi- 
work is only the outward sign of a full inner life^ 
kindled by the fire of aspiration^ and glowing with 
the warm ardor of devotion. Bective Abbey dates 
from about 1150. We are told that the king of 
Meath who founded it for the Cistercian order 
^' endowed it with two hundred and forty -five acres 
of land^ a fishing-weir and a milL" From this meager 
outline we can almost restore the picture of the life, 
altogether idyllic and full of quiet delight^ that the 
old Friars lived among the meadows of the Boyne. 

Grey Abbey was founded a little later^ in 1193, for 
the same Cistercian order, where the promontory of 
the Ards divides Strangford Lough from the eastern 
sea. Over the waters of the lough, the red sandstone 
hills of north Down make a frame for the green of 
the meadows, as the tide laps and murmurs close to 
the old monastic church. Grey Abbey owes its foun- 
dation to the piety of a princess of the Isle of Man, 
wedded to De Courcy, the Norman warrior whose 
victories and defeats we have recorded. The great 
beauty of its church is due to the soaring loftiness of 
the eastern window, and the graceful daring of the 
arches which in former days upheld the central tower. 



THE NORMANS. 303 

Other Cistercian foundations are commemorated 
in the names of Abbey-leix in Queen's county, and 
Abbey-dorney and Abbey-feale in Kerry ; all three 
dating from after the reformation of the order by 
Saint Bernard the Younger, though the work of that 
ardent missionary did not apparently extend its in- 
fluence to Ireland until a later date. This reformer 
of the Cistercians must not be confused with the 
elder Saint Bernard, whose hospice guards the pass 
of the Alps which bears his name. Saint Bernard 
of the Alps died in 1008, while Saint Bernard the 
reformer was born in 1093, dying sixty years later 
as abbot of Clara vallis or Clairvaux, on the bank of 
the Aube in northern France. It was at this Abbey 
of the Bright Vale, or Clara vallis, that Archbishop 
Maelmaedog resigned his spirit to heaven, five years 
before the death of the younger Saint Bernard, then 
abbot there. This is a link between the old in- 
digenous church and the continental orders of 
the Friars. 

Killmallock Abbey, in Limerick, belonged to the 
order of the Dominicans, founded by the scion of the 
Guzmans, the ardent apostle of Old Castile, known 
to history as Saint Dominick. Here again Ave have 
a beautiful abbey church with a square central tower, 



304 IRELAND. 

upborne on soaring and graceful arches from the 
point where the nave joined the choir. There is only 
one transept — on the south — so that the church is not 
fully cruciform, a peculiarity shared by several other 
Dominican buildings. The eastern window and the 
window of this transept are full of delicate grace and 
beauty, each containing five lights, and marked by 
the singularly charming manner in which the mullions 
are interlaced above. Enough remains of the cloister 
and the domestic buildings for us to bring back to 
life the picture of the old monastic days, when the 
good Friars worked and prayed there, with the sun- 
light falling on them through the delicate network of 
the windows. 

Holycross Abbey, near Thurles in Tipperary, was 
another of the Cistercian foundations, its charter, 
dating from 1182, being still in existence. Its church 
is cruciform ; the nave is separated from the north 
aisle by round arches, and from the south aisle by 
pointed arches, which gives it a singular and unusual 
beauty. The great western window of the nave, 
with its six lights, is also very wonderful. Two 
chapels are attached to the north transept, with a 
passage between them, its roof supported by a double 
row of pointed arches upheld by twisted pillars. The 



Holy Cross Ahhcy, Co. Tipperary 



THE NORMANS. 305 

roof is delicately groined, as is the roof of the choir, 
and the whole abbey breathes a luxuriant richness 
of imagination, bearing everywhere the signs of high 
creative genius. The same lavish imagination is 
shown everywhere in the interlaced tracery, the 
black limestone giving the artist an admirable vehicle 
for his work. Though the charter dates from the 
twelfth century, some of the work is about two cen- 
turies later, showing finely the continuity of life and 
spiritual power in the old monastic days. 

The Friars of Saint Augustine, who were in pos- 
session of the abbey at Newtown on the Boyne, had 
another foundation not far from Westport in Mayo, 
in the Abbey of Ballintober, founded in 1216 by a 
son of the great Ruaidri Ua Concobar. Here also 
we have the cruciform church, with four splendid 
arches rising from the intersection of nave and choir, 
and once supporting the tower. The Norman win- 
dows over the altar, with their dog-tooth mouldings, 
are very perfect. In a chapel on the south of the 
choir are figures of the old abbots carved in stone. 

One of the Ui-Briain founded a Franciscan Abbey 
at Ennis in Clare about 1240, which is more per- 
fectly preserved than any of those we have de- 
scribed. The tower still stands, rising over the junc- 

20 



306 IKELAND. 

tion of nave and choir ; the refectory, chapter house, 
and some other buildings still remain, while the figure 
of the patron, Saint Francis of Assisi, still stands 
beside the altar at the north pier of the nave. 

Clare Abbey, a mile from Ennis, was founded for 
the Augustine Friars in 1195, and here also the 
tower still stands, dominating the surrounding plain. 
Three miles further south, on the shore of Killone 
Lake, was yet another abbey of the same period, 
while twenty miles to the north, at Corcomroe on 
the shore of Galway Bay, the Cistercians had yet 
another home. 

We might continue the list indefinitely. Some of 
the most beautiful of our abbeys still remain to be 
recorded, but we can do no more than give their 
names : Bonamargy was built for the Franciscans in 
Antrim in the fifteenth century ; the Dominican 
priory at Koscommon dates from 1257 j the Cister- 
cian Abbey of Jerpoint in Kilkenny was begun in 
1180 ; Molana Abbey, in Waterford, was built for 
the Augustinians on the site of a very old church ; 
and finally Knockmoy Abbey in Galway, famous for 
its fourteenth century frescoes, was begun in 1189. 
We must remember that every one of these repre- 
sents, and by its variations of style indicates, an un- 



THE NORMANS. 307 

broken life through several centuries. The death- 
knell of the old life of the abbeys and priories, in 
Ireland as in England, was struck in the year 1537 
by the law which declared their lands forfeited to the 
crown, as the result of the religious controversies of 
the beginning of the sixteenth century. 



THE TRIUMPH OF FEUDALISM. 



XIII. 

THE TRIUMPH OF FEUDALISM. 
A.D. 1603-1660. 

The confiscation of the abbey lands, as the result 
of religious controversy, closed an epoch of ecclesi- 
astical life in Ireland, which we cannot look back on 
without great regret for the noble and beautiful qual- 
ities it brought forth in such abundance. There is a 
perennial charm and fascination in the quiet life of 
the old religious houses — in the world, yet not of the 
world — which appeals to aesthetic and moral elements 
in our minds in equal degree. From their lovely 
churches and chapter-houses the spirits of the old 
monks invite us to join them in an unworldly peace 
on earth, a renewal of the golden age, a life full of 
aspiration and self-forgetfulness, Avith all the burdens 
of egotism laid aside. 

Yet after all is said, we can hardly fail to see that 
out of the spoliation and scattering of the religious 
orders much good came. There was a danger that, 
like the older indigenous schools which they sup- 
planted, these later foundations might divide the na- 

(311) 



312 IRELAND. 

tion in two, all things within their consecrated walls 
being deemed holy, while all without was unregener- 
ate, given up to wrath. A barrier of feelings and 
hopes thus springing up, tends to harden from year 
to year, till at last we have a religious caste grown 
proud and arrogant, and losing all trace of the 
spiritual fervor which is its sole reason for being. 

The evils which surround a wealthy church are 
great and easily to be understood, nor need we lay 
stress on them. There is, indeed, cause for wonder 
in the spectacle of the followers of him ^^ who had 
not where to lay his head^^ become, in the Middle 
Ages, the greatest owners of land in Europe 5 and 
we can see how temptations and abuses without num- 
ber might and did often arise from this very fact. 
Ambition, the desire of wealth, the mere love of ease, 
led many to profess a religious life who had never 
passed through that transformation of will and under- 
standing which is the essence of religion. The very 
purpose of religion was forgotten, or allowed to be 
hidden away under things excellent in themselves, 
yet not essential ; and difference of view about these 
unessential things led to fierce and bitter contro- 
versy, and later to open strife and war. 

We take religion, in its human aspect, to mean the 



THE TRIUMPH OF FEUDALISM. 313 

growth of a new and wider consciousness above the 
keen, self-assertive consciousness of the individual ; 
a superseding of the personal by the humane ; a 
change from egotism to a more universal understand- 
ing 5 so that each shall act, not in order to gain an 
advantage over others, but rather to attain the 
greatest good for himself and others equally • that 
one shall not dominate another for his own profit, but 
shall rather seek to draw forth in that other whatever 
is best and truest, so that both may find their finest 
growth. Carried far enough, this principle, which 
makes one's neighbor a second self, will bring to 
light in us the common soul, the common life that 
has tacitly worked in all human intercourse from the 
beginning. Individual consciousness is in no way 
effaced ; something new, wider and more humane, 
something universal, is added to it from above ; 
something consciously common to all souls. And 
through the inspiration of that larger soul, the indi- 
vidual life for the first time comes to its true power — - 
a power which is held by all pure souls in common. 

We can see that something like this was the origi- 
nal inspiration of the religious orders. Their very 
name of Friars or Brothers speaks of the ideal of a 
common life above egotism. They sought a new 



314 IRELAND. 

birth through the death of selfishness, through self- 
sacrifice and renunciation. All their life in common 
was a symbol of the single soul inspiring them, the 
very form of their churches bearing testimony to 
their devotion. More than that, the beauty and in- 
spiration which still radiate from the old abbey build- 
ings show how often and in how large a degree that 
ideal was actually attained. 

Nevertheless we can very well see how the pos- 
session of large wealth and costly offerings might be 
a hindrance to that spirit, fanning back to life the 
smouldering fires of desire. We can see even more 
clearly that the division between the secular and the 
religious life would tend to raise a moral barrier, 
hardening that very sense of separation which the 
humane and universal consciousness seeks to kill. 
Finally, we should see what the world has often 
seen : the disciples of the Nazarene dwelling in pal- 
aces, and vying with princes in the splendor of their 
retinues. This is hardly the way to make real the 
teaching of " the kingdom not of this world." This 
world, in the meaning of that saying, is the old 
world of egotism, of self-assertion, of selfish rivalry, 
of the sense of separation. The kingdom is that 
very realm of humane and universal consciousness 



THE TKIUMPH OF FEUDALISM. 315 

added from above, the sense of the one soul common 
to all men and working through all men, whether 
they know it or not. 

We can, therefore, see that the confiscation of the 
monasteries, and even the persecution of the religious 
orders, might be the cause of lasting spiritual good; 
it was like the opening of granaries and the scattering 
of grain abroad over the fields. The religious force, 
instead of drawing men out of the world, thenceforth 
was compelled to work among all men, not creating 
beautiful abbeys but transforming common lives. Per- 
secution was the safeguard of sincerity, the fire of 
purification, from which men^s spirits came forth pure 
gold. Among all nations of the world, Ireland has 
long held the first place for pure morals, especially in 
the relations of sex ; and this is increasingly true of 
those provinces where the old indigenous element is 
most firmly established. We may affirm that the 
spiritualizing of religious feeling through persecution 
has had its share in bringing this admirable result, 
working, as it did, on a race which has ever held a 
high ideal of purity. 

Thus out of evil comes good ; out of oppression, 
rapacity and confiscation grow pure unselfishness, an 
unworldly ideal, a sense of the invisible realm. We 



316 IRELAND. 

shall presently see the same forces of rapacity and 
avarice sowing the seeds for a not less excellent 
harvest in the world of civil life. 

The principle of feudalism^ though introduced by 
the first Norman adventurers in the twelfth century^ 
did not gain legal recognition over the whole country 
until the seventeenth. The old communal tenure of 
the Brehon law was gradually superseded^ so that, 
instead of innumerable tribal territories with elected 
chiefs, there grew up a system of estates, where the 
land was owned by one man and tilled by others. 
The germ of this tenure was the right of private 
taxation over certain districts, granted by the Nor- 
man duke to his barons and warriors as the reward 
for their help in battle. Feudal land tenure never 
was, and never pretended to be, a contract between 
cultivator and landowner for their mutual benefit. 
It was rather the right to prey on the farmer, as- 
signed to the landowner by the king, and paid for in 
past or present services to the king. In other words, 
the head of the Norman army invited his ofiicers to 
help themselves to a share of the cattle and crops 
over certain districts of England, and promised to 
aid them in securing their plunder, in case the Saxon 
cultivator was rash enough to resist. The baronial 



THE TRIUMPH OF FEUDALISM. 317 

order presently ceased to render any real service to 
their duke, beyond upholding him that he might 
uphold them. But there was no such surcease for 
the Saxon cultivator. The share of his cattle and 
crops which he was compelled to give up to the 
Norman baron became more rigidly defined, more 
strictly exacted, with every succeeding century, and 
the whole civil state of England was built up on this 
principle. 

The baronial order assembled at Runnymead to 
force the hand of the king. From that time forward 
their power increased, while the king's power waned. 
But there was no Runnymead for the Saxon culti- 
vator. He continued, as to this day he continues, to 
pay the share of his cattle and crops to the Norman 
baron or his successor, in return for services — no 
longer rendered — to the king. The whole civil state 
of England, therefore, depends on the principle of 
private taxation ; the Norman barons and their suc- 
cessors receiving a share of the cattle and crops of 
the whole country, year after year, generation after 
generation, century after century, as payment for 
services long become purely imaginary, and even in 
the beginning rendered not to the cultivator who was 
taxed, but to the head of the armed invaders^ who 



318 lEELAND. 

stood ready to enforce the payment. The Constitu- 
tion of England embodies this very principle even 
now^ in the twentieth century. Two of the three 
Estates^ — King, Lords and Commons, — in whom the 
law-making power is vested, represent the Norman 
conquest, while even the third, still called the Lower 
House, boasts of being " an assembly of gentlemen," 
that is, of those who possess the right of private tax- 
ation of land, the right to claim a share of the cattle 
and crops of the whole country without giving any- 
thing at all in return. 

This is the system which English influence slowly 
introduced into Ireland, and with the reign of the 
first Stuarts the change was practically complete, 
guaranteed by law, and enforced by armed power. 
The tribesmen were now tenants of their former 
elected chief, in whom the ownership of the tribal 
land was invested ; the right of privately taxing the 
tribesmen was guaranteed to the chief by law, and a 
share of all cattle and crops- was his by legal right, 
not as head of the tribe, but as owner of the land, 
with power to dispossess the tribesmen if they failed 
to pay his tax. 

But very many districts had long before this come 
under the dominion of Norman adventurers, like the 



THE TRIUMPH OF FEUDALISM. 319 

De Courcys, the De Lacjs, and the rest, of whose 
coming we have told. They also enjoyed the right 
of private taxation over the districts under their do- 
minion, and, naturally, had power to assign this right 
to others, — not only to their heirs, but to their cred- 
itors, — or even simply to sell the right of taxing a 
certain district to the highest bidder in open market. 

The tribal warfare of the Middle Ages had brought 
many of the old chiefs and Norman lords into open 
strife with the central power, with the result that the 
possessions of unsuccessful chiefs and lords were con- 
tinually assigned by the law-courts to those who stood 
on the side of the central power, the right to tax cer- 
tain districts thus changing hands indefinitely. The 
law-courts thus came into possession of a very potent 
weapon, whether for rewarding the friends or pun- 
ishing the enemies of the central power, or simply 
for the payment of personal and partisan favors. 

During the reign of the first Stuarts the full sig- 
nificance of this weapon seems to have been grasped. 
We see an unlimited traffic in the right to tax ; 
estates confiscated and assigned to time-serving offi- 
cials, and endless abuses arising from the corruption 
of the courts, the judges being appointed by the 
very persons who were presently to invoke the law 



320 IRELAND. 

to their own profit. The tribal system was sub- 
merged, and the time of uncertainty was taken ad- 
vantage of to introduce unlimited abuses, to assign 
to adventurers a fat share of other men's goods, to 
create a class legally owning the land, and entitled, 
in virtue of that ownership, to a share of the cattle 
and crops which they had done nothing to produce. 

The Stuarts were at this very time sowing the 
seeds of civil war in England by the introduction of 
like abuses, the story of which has been repeatedly 
told ; and we are all familiar with the history of the 
great uprising which was thereby provoked, to the 
temporary eclipse of the power of the crown. The 
story of the like uprising at the same epoch, and from 
kindred causes, in Ireland, is much more obscure, but 
equally worth recording, and to this uprising we may 
now turn. 

Its moral causes we have already spoken of. 
There was, first, the confiscation of the abbey lands, 
and the transfer of church revenues and buildings to 
Anglican clergy — clergy, that is, who recognized the 
sovreign of England as the head of the church. 
This double confiscation touched the well-springs of 
intense animosity, the dispossessed abbots using all 
the influences of their order in foreign lands to bring 



THE TRIUMPH OF FEUDALISM. 321 

about their re-installation, while the controversy as 
to the headship of the church aroused all the fierce 
and warring passions that had been raging on the 
Continent since the beginning of the sixteenth 
century. 

There were, besides, the griefs of the dispossessed 
chieftains, whose tribal lands had been given to 
others. Chief among these was the famous house 
of O'Neill, the descendants of Nial, the old pagan 
monarch whose wars are thought to have brought 
the captive of Slemish Mountain to Ireland. The 
O'Neills, like their neighbors the O'Donnells, de- 
scendants of Domnall, had been one of the great 
forces of tribal strife for eighty generations, and they 
now saw their lands confiscated and given over to 
strangers. But they were only representatives of a 
feeling which was universal ; an indignant opposition 
to arbitrary and tyrannous expropriation. 

The head of the O'Neills had made his peace with 

the Tudors on the very day Queen EHzabeth died, 

and the tribal lands had been guaranteed to him in 

perpetuity. But within four years plots were set on 

foot by the central authorities, possibly acting in 

good faith, to dispossess him and the chief of the 

O'Donnells on a charge of treason ; and in 1607 both 

21 



322 IRELAND. 

fled to the Continent. Their example was followed 
by numberless others, and the more restless and com- 
bative spirits among the tribesmen, who preferred 
fighting to the tilling of their fields, entered the con- 
tinental armies in large numbers. 

When the chiefs of the north fled to the Continent, 
their lands were held to have reverted to the crown ; 
and not only was the right to tax the produce of these 
lands assigned to adherents of the central power, but 
numbers of farmers from the Scottish lowlands, and 
in lesser degree from England, were brought over 
and settled on the old tribal territory. The tribes- 
men, wdth their cattle, were driven to less fertile dis- 
tricts, and the valleys were tilled by the transplanted 
farmers of Scotland. This was the Plantation of 
Ulster, of 1611, — four years after the flight of 
O'Neill and O'Donnell. The religious controversies 
of Scotland were thereby introduced into Ireland, so 
that there were three parties now in conflict — the old 
indigenous church, dispossessed of revenues and 
buildings, and even of civil rights ; the Anglicans 
who had received these revenues and buildings, and, 
lastly, the Dissenters — Presbyterians and Puritans — 
equally opposed to both the former. 

The struggle between the king and Parliament of 



THE TRIUMPH OF FEUDALISM. 323 

England now found an echo in Ireland, the Anglican 
party representing the king, while the Scottish and 
English newcomers sympathized with the Parliament. 
A cross-fire of interests and animosities was thus 
aroused, which greatly complicated the first elements 
of strife. The Parliament at Dublin was in the 
hands of the Puritan party, and was in no sense rep- 
resentative of the other elements of the country. 
There was a Puritan army of about ten thousand, as 
a garrison of defence for the Puritan newcomers in 
Ulster, and there were abundant materials of an op- 
posing national army in the tribal warriors both at 
home and on the Continent. 

These national materials were presently drawn to- 
gether by the head of the O'Neills, known to history 
as Owen Roe, an admirable leader and a most accom- 
plished man, who wrote and spoke Latin, Spanish, 
French and English, as well as his mother-tongue. 
Owen Koe O'Neill had won renown on many conti- 
nental battlefields, and was admirably fitted by genius 
and training to lead a national party, not only in 
council but in the field. The nucleus of his army he 
established in Tyrone, gaining numbers of recruits 
whom he rapidly turned into excellent soldiers. 

This took place at the end of 1641 and the begin- 



324 IRELAND. 

ning of 1642j and the other forces of the country 
were organized about the same time. The lines of 
difference between the Anglican and Catholic parties 
were at this time very lightly drawn^ and the Norman 
lords found themselves able to co-operate with the 
Catholic bishops in forming a General Assembly at 
Kells^ which straightway set itself to frame a Consti- 
tution for the country. 

The Norman lords had meanwhile assembled and 
organized their retainers^ so that there were now 
three armies in Ireland : the garrison of the Scottish 
settlers under Monroe^ strongly in sympathy with the 
Puritans 5 the tribal army under Owen Roe O'Neill 5 
and the army of the Norman lords. The General 
Assembly outlined a system of parliamentary repre- 
sentation in which the Lords and Commons were to 
form a single House, the latter, two hundred and 
twenty-six in number, representing all the important 
cities and towns. A supreme Cabinet was to be 
formed, composed of six members for each of the 
four provinces, twenty-four in all, who might be lords 
spiritual or temporal, or commoners, according to the 
choice of the Parliament. This Cabinet, thus se- 
lected from the whole Parliament, was the responsi- 
ble executive of the country ; and under the Su- 



Donegal Castle 



THE TRIUMPH OF FEUDALISM. 325 

preme Council a series of Provincial Councils and 
County Councils were to be formed along the same 
lines. 

This plan was adopted at a general meeting of all 
the influential forces of the country, which assembled 
in May at Kilkenny, where many Parliaments had 
sat during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 
Writs were issued for elections under the new Con- 
stitution, and the date of the first assembly of the 
new Parliament was fixed for October. The new 
national body enjoyed abundant revenues, and no 
small state marked its deliberations in Kilkenny. 
We read of an endless series of illuminations, recep- 
tions, banquets and balls, — the whole of the Norman 
nobility of Leinster lavishing their great Avealth in 
magnificent display. The Supreme Council jour- 
neyed in state from Kilkenny to Wexford, from 
Wexford to Waterford, from Waterford to Limerick 
and Galway, surrounded by hundreds of horsemen 
with drawn swords, and accompanied by an army of 
officials. AA e hear of ^^ civil and military represen- 
tations of comedies and stage plays, feasts and ban- 
quets, and palate-enticing dishes." 

The General Assembly, duly elected, finally met 
on October 23, 1642, at Kilkenny. On the same 



326 IRELAND. 

day was fought the battle of Edgehill^ between the 
king of England and the forces of the English Par- 
liament. This battle was the signal for division of 
counsels in the new Assembly. The Norman lords 
of Leinster^ who stood on the ground of feudalism^ 
and lived under the shadow of royal authority, were 
strongly drawn to take the side of the king against 
the English Parliament, and overtures of negotiation 
were made, which came near gaining a recognition 
and legalization of the General Assembly by the 
English Crown. 

While the leaders at Kilkenny were being drawn 
towards the royalists of England, Owen Roe O'Neill 
was successfully holding Ulster against the Puritan 
forces under Monroe and Leslie, with their head- 
quarters at Carrickfergus. Thus matters went on 
till the autumn of 1643, when we find him inflicting 
a serious defeat on the English army under Monk 
and Moore at Portlester in Meath, in which Moore 
was killed and his forces driven back within the 
walls of Drogheda. 

The General Assembly continued to exercise sov- 
reign authority at Kilkenny, collecting revenues, 
maintaining courts of justice in the provinces, and 
keeping several armies in the field, most effective of 



THE TRIUMPH OF FEUDALISM. 327 

which was undoubtedly that of Owen Roe O'Neill. 
We find matters still in this condition three years 
later^ in May, 1646, when Monroe and the Scottish 
forces prepared to inaugurate an offensive campaign 
from their base at Carrickfergus. General Robert 
Monroe had about seven thousand men at Carrick- 
fergus ; his brother George had five hundred at 
Coleraine ; while there was a Scottish army at Derry, 
numbering about two thousand men. It was decided 
to converge these three forces on Clones, in Mona- 
ghan, and thence to proceed southwards against the 
government of the General Assembly, then centered 
at Limerick. Clones was sixty miles from Derry, 
and rather more from Coleraine and Carrickfergus, 
the two other points of departure. 

Owen Roe O'Neill was then at Cavan, fourteen 
miles south of Clones, with five thousand foot and 
five hundred horse, all " good, hopeful men," to use 
his own words. General Robert Monroe, starting 
from Carrickfergus, and marching by Lisburn and 
Armagh, expected to reach Glasslough, some sixteen 
miles from Clones, on June 5th. By a forced march 
from Cavan, Owen Roe O'Neill reached Glasslough 
a day earlier, and marching along the northern 
Blackwater, pitched his camp on the north bank of 



328 lEELAND. 

the river. Here he was directly in the line between 
the two Monroes^ who could only join their forces 
after dislodging him ; and Kobert Monroe, who by 
that time had reached Armagh, saw that it would be 
necessary to give battle without delay if the much 
smaller forces from the north were not to be 
cut off. 

Robert Monroe began a movement northwards 
towards Owen Roe's position at dawn on June 5th, 
and presently reached the Blackwater, to find him- 
self face to face with Owen Roe's army across the 
river. The two forces kept parallel with each other 
for some time, till Robert Monroe finally forded the 
Blackwater at Caledon, Owen Roe then retiring in 
the direction of the current, which here flows north. 
Owen Roe, in his movement of withdrawal, brought 
his army through a narrow pass, which he left in 
charge of one of his best infantry regiments, with 
orders to hold it only so long as the enemy could be 
safely harassed, meanwhile carrying his main body 
back to the hill of Knocknacloy, the position he had 
chosen from the first for the battle, and to gain 
which he had up to this time been manoeuvering. 

At Knocknacloy he had the center of his army 
protected by the hill, the right by a marsh, and the 



THE TRIUMPH OF FEUDALISM. 329 

left by the river, so that, a flanking movement on 
Monroe's part being impossible, the Scottish general 
was forced to make a frontal attack. Under cover 
of the rearguard action at the pass, which caused 
both delay and confusion to Monroe's army, Owen 
Roe formed his men in order of battle. His first line 
was of four columns, with considerable spaces be- 
tween them ; his cavalry was on the right and left 
wings, behind this first line ; while three columns 
more were drawn up some distance farther back, 
behind the openings in the front line, and forming 
the reserve. We should remember that not only was 
Owen Roe's army outnumbered by Monroe's, but 
also that Owen Roe had no artillery, while Monroe 
was well supplied with guns. 

Meanwhile Monroe's army came into touch with 
Owen Roe's force, and the Scottish general opened 
fire with guns and muskets, to which the muskets of 
Owen Roe as vigorously replied. The Scottish artil- 
lery was planted on a hillock a quarter-mile from 
Owen Roe's center, and under cover of its fire an in- 
fantry charge was attempted, which was brilliantly 
repulsed by the pikemen of Owen Roe's army. A 
second attack was made by the Scottish cavalry, who 
tried to ford the river, and thus turn the left flank 



330 IRELAND. 

of the Irish army, but they were met and routed by 
the Irish horse. This was about six in the evening, 
and the sun, hanging low in the sky, fell full in the 
faces of the Scottish troops. Owen Roe promptly 
followed up the rout of the Scottish horse by an ad- 
vance, making a sweeping movement from right to 
left, and thereby forcing Monroe towards the junction 
of two streams, where he had no space to move. At 
this point Owen Roe's army received a notable acces- 
sion of strength in the form of four squadrons of 
cavalry, sent earlier in the day to guard against the 
possible approach of George Monroe from Coleraine. 
At a signal from Owen Roe, his army advanced 
upon Monroe's force, to be met by a charge of the 
Scottish cavalry, instantly replied to by a charge of 
the Irish cavalry through the three open spaces in 
the front infantry line of Owen Roe's army. Mon- 
roe's first line was broken, and the Irish pikemen, 
the equivalent of a bayonet charge, steadily forced 
him backwards. It was a fierce struggle, hand to 
hand, eye to eye, and blade to blade. The order of 
Owen Roe's advance was admirably preserved, while 
the Scottish and English forces were in confusion, 
already broken and crowded into a narrow and con- 
stricted space between the two rivers. Finally the 



THE TKIUMPH OF FEUDALISM. 381 

advancing Irish army reached and stormed the hillock 
where Monroe's artillery was placed, and victory was 
palpably won. The defeat of the Scottish and Eng- 
lish army became an utter rout, and when the sun 
set more than three thousand of them lay dead on 
the field. 

It is almost incredible that the Irish losses were 
only seventy, yet such is the number recorded, while 
not only was the opposing army utterly defeated and 
dispersed, but Monroe's whole artillery, his tents and 
baggage, fifteen hundred horses, twenty stand of 
colors, two months' provisions and numbers of pris- 
oners of war fell into the hands of Owen Roe ; 
while, as a result of the battle, the two auxiliary 
forces were forced to retreat and take refuge in 
Coleraine and Derry, General Robert Monroe escap- 
ing meanwhile to Carrickfergus. It is only just to 
him to say that our best accounts of the battle come 
from officers in Monroe's army, Owen Roe content- 
ing himself with the merest outline of the result 
gained, but saying nothing of the consummate gen- 
eralship that gained it. 

For the next two years we see Owen Roe O'Neill 
holding the great central plain, the west and most of 
the north of Ireland against the armies of the Eng- 



332 IRELAND. 

lish Parliamentarians and Royalists alike, and gain- 
ing victory after victory, generally against superior 
numbers, better armed and better equipped. We 
find him time after time almost betrayed by the Su- 
preme Council, in which the Norman lords of Lein- 
ster, perpetually anxious for their own feudal estates, 
were ready to treat with whichever of the English 
parties was for the moment victorious, hoping that, 
whatever might be the outcome of the great English 
struggle, they themselves might be gainers. At this 
time they were in possession of many of the abbey 
lands, and there was perpetual friction between them 
and the ecclesiastics, their co-religionists, who had 
been driven from these same lands, so that the Nor- 
man landowners were the element of fatal weakness 
throughout this whole movement, willing to wound, 
and yet afraid to strike. While praying for the 
final defeat of the English parliamentary forces, they 
dreaded to see this defeat brought about by Owen 
Roe O'Neill, in whom they saw the representative of 
the old tribal OAvnership of Gaelic times, a return to 
which would mean their own extinction. 

Matters went so far that the Supreme Council, 
representing chiefly these Norman lords, had prac- 
tically betrayed its trust to the Royalist party in 



THE TRIUMPH OF FEUDALISM. 333 

England, and would have completed that betrayal 
had not the beheading of King Charles signalized 
the triumph of the Parliamentarians. Even then the 
Norman lords hoped for the Restoration, and strove 
in every way to undermine the authority of their 
own general, Owen Roe O'Neill, who was almost 
forced to enter into an alliance with the Puritans 
by the treachery of the Norman lords. It is of the 
greatest interest to find Monroe writing thus to 
Owen Roe in August, 1649 : '^ By my own extrac- 
tion, I have an interest in the Irish nation. I know 
how your lands have been taken, and your people 
made hewers of wood and drawers of water. If an 
Irishman can be a scourge to his own nation, the 
English will give him fair words but keep him from 
all trust, that they may destroy him when they have 
served themselves by him." 

On November 6, 1649, this great general died 
after a brief illness, having for seven years led his 
armies to constant victory, while the Norman lords, 
who were in name his allies, were secretly plotting 
against him for their own profit. Yet so strong and 
dominant was his genius that he overcame not only 
the forces of his foes but the treacheries of his 
friends, and his last days saw him at one with the 



334 lEELAND. 

Normans, while the forces of the Parliamentarians in 
Ireland were calling on him for help. 

We see, therefore, that for full eight years, from 
the beginning of 1642 to the close of 1649, Ireland 
had an independent national government, with a 
regularly elected Representative Assembly, and a 
central authority, the Supreme Council, appointed by 
that Assembly, with judges going circuit and holding 
their courts regularly, while the Supreme Council 
held a state of almost regal magnificence, and kept 
several armies continuously in the field. While 
Owen Roe O'Neill lived, that part of the army 
under his command was able not only to secure an 
unbroken series of victories for itself, but also to re- 
trieve the defeats suffered by less competent com- 
manders, so that at his death he was at the summit 
of power and fame. If regret were ever profitable, 
we might well regret that he did not follow the ex- 
ample of the great English commander, his contem- 
porary, and declare himself Lord Protector of Ire- 
land, with despotic power. 

After his death, the work he had done so well was 
all undone again, in part by treachery, in part by 
the victories of Oliver Cromwell. Yet ten years 
after the Lord Protector's arrival in Ireland, his 



THE TKIUMPH OF FEUDALISM. 335 

own work was undone not less completely, and 
the Restoration saw once more enthroned every 
principle against which Cromwell had so stubbornly 
contended. 



THE JACOBITE WARS. 



22 



XIV. 

THE JACOBITE WARS. 
A.D. 1660-1750. 

The Restoration saw Cromwell's work completely 
undone ; nor did the class which helped him to his 
victories again rise above the surface. The genius 
of the Stuarts was already sowing the seeds of new 
revolutions ; but the struggle was presently to be 
fought out, not between the king and the people, but 
between the king and the more liberal or more am- 
bitious elements of the baronial class, Avho saw in the 
despotic aspirations of the Stuarts a menace to their 
own power. 

These liberal elements in England selected as their 
champion Prince William of Nassau, before whose 
coming the English king found it expedient to fly to 
France, seeking and finding a friend in that apostle 
of absolutism, Louis XIV. We have already seen 
how the interests of the feudal lords of Ireland, with 
the old Norman families as their core, drew them to- 
wards the Stuarts. The divine right of the land- 
owner depended, as we saw, on the divine right of 

(339) 



340 IRELAND. 

kings ; so that they naturally gravitated towards the 
Stuarts^ and drew their tenants and retainers after 
them. Thus a considerable part of Ireland was en- 
listed on the side of James II, and shared the mis- 
fortunes which presently overtook him — or in truth 
did not overtake him, as the valiant gentleman outran 
them and escaped. Nothing is more firmly fixed in 
the memories of the whole Irish people than a good- 
natured contempt for this runaway English king, 
whose cause they were induced by the feudal lords 
to espouse. We shall follow the account of an officer 
in the Jacobite army in narrating the events of the 
campaigns that ensued. 

James, having gained courage and funds from his 
sojourn at the court of Louis XIV, presently made 
his appearance in Ireland, relying on the support of 
the feudal lords. He landed at Kinsale, in Cork, on 
March 12, 1688, according to the Old Style, and 
reached Dublin twelve days later, warmly welcomed 
by Lord and Lady Tyrconnell. The only place in 
the country which strongly declared for William was 
the walled city of Derry, whence we have seen the 
Puritan forces issuing during the wars of the preced- 
ing generation. James, this officer says, went north 
to Derry, in spite of the bitterness of the season, ^^ in 



TuHytnotc Paffe, Co* Down 



THE JACOBITE WARS. 341 

order to preserve his Protestant subjects there from 
the ill-treatment which he apprehended they might 
receive from the Irish/' and was mightily surprised 
when the gates were shut in his face and the citizens 
opened iire upon him from the walls. 

James withdrew immediately to Dublin, assembled 
a Parliament there, and spent several months in vain 
discussions, not even finding courage to repeal the 
penal laws which Queen Elizabeth had passed against 
all who refused to recognize her as the head of the 
church. James Avas already embarked on a career 
of duplicity, professing great love for Ireland, yet 
fearing to carry out his professions lest he might 
arouse animosity in England, and so close the door 
against his hoped-for return. 

Enniskillen, on an island in Lough Erne, dominated 
by a strong castle, was, like Derry, a settlement of 
Scottish and English colonists brought over by the 
first of the Stuarts. These colonists were up in arms 
against the grandson of their first patron, and had 
successfully attacked his forces which were besieging 
Derry. James, therefore, sent a small body of troops 
against them ; but the expedition ended in an igno- 
minious rout rather than a battle, for the Jacobite 
army seems hardly to have struck a blow. The Irish 



342 lEELAND. 

leader^ Lord Mountcashel^ who manfully stood his 
ground in the general panic^ was wounded and taken 
prisoner. 

The armies of James^ meanwhile, made no head- 
way against the courageous and determined defenders 
of Derry, where the siege was degenerating into a 
blockade, the scanty rations and sickness of the be- 
sieged being a far more formidable danger than the 
attacks of the besiegers. James even weakened the 
attacking forces by withdrawing a part of the troops 
to Dublin, being resolved at all risks to protect him- 
self. 

So devoid of resolution and foresight was James 
that we only find him taking means to raise an army 
when Schomberg, the able lieutenant of William, was 
about to invade the north of Ireland. Schomberg 
landed at Bangor in Down in August, 1689, and 
marched south towards Drogheda, but finding that 
James was there before him, he withdrew and estab- 
lished a strongly fortified camp near Dundalk. 
James advanced to a point about seven miles from 
Schomberg, and there entrenched himself in turn, 
and so the two armies remained ; as one of Schom- 
berg's officers says, '^ our General would not risk any- 
thing, nor King James venture anything.'^ The long 



THE JACOBITE WAES. 343 

delay was very fatal to Schomberg's army, his 
losses by sickness and disease being more than six 
thousand men. 

Early in November, as winter was already making 
itself felt, James decided to withdraw to Dublin ; as 
our narrator says, ^^ the young commanders were in 
some haste to return to the capital, where the ladies 
expected them with great impatience ; so that King 
James, being once more persuaded to disband the 
new levies and raising his camp a little of the soonest, 
dispersed his men too early into winter quarters, 
having spent that campaign without any advantage, 
vainly expecting that his Protestant subjects of Eng- 
land who were in the camp of Schomberg would 
come over to him. And now the winter season, 
which should be employed in serious consultations, 
and making the necessary preparations for the ensu- 
ing campaign, was idly spent in revels, in gaming, 
and other debauches unfit for a Catholic court. But 
warlike Schomberg, who, after the retreat of James, 
had leisure to remove his sickly soldiers, to bury the 
dead, and put the few men that remained alive and 
were healthy into winter quarters of refreshment, 
took the field early in spring, before Tyrconnell was 
awake, and reduced the castle of Charlemont, the 



344 IRELAND. 

only place that held for James in Ulster, which was 
lost for want of provisions 5 and the concerns of the 
unfortunate James were ill-managed by those whom 
he entrusted with the administration of public 
affairs.'' 

We come thus to the spring of 1690. Derry was 
still holding out valiantly against the horrors of 
famine and sickness, the blockade being maintained, 
though nothing like a determined storm was at- 
tempted. A little of the courage shown by the ap- 
prentices of Derry, had he possessed it, might have 
revived the drooping fortunes of the fugitive Eng- 
lish king. It seems, however, that even Schom- 
berg's withdrawal to Carrickfergus failed to arouse 
him to more vigorous and valiant measures. It is 
clear that he was ready to abandon his Irish allies, 
hoping by their betrayal to gain favor with his 
'' subjects in England," whom he confidently ex- 
pected to recall him, as they had recalled his brother 
Charles thirty years before. James found an able 
lieutenant in Tyrconnell, who thoroughly entered 
into his master's schemes of duplicity ; and it is 
fairly clear that these two worthies, had occasion 
offered, would have betrayed each other with a per- 
fectly good grace. 



THE JACOBITE WARS. 345 

Thus matters dragged on quite indecisively until 
June, 1690, Avhen King William landed at Carrick- 
fergus with a mixed force of English, Scottish, 
Dutch, Danish, Swedish and German troops, and 
joined his forces to the remnant of Schomberg's 
army. James, as we saw, had disbanded his army 
on breaking up his camp in the previous autumn, 
and had made no effective effort to get a new army 
together. Nor could he have used a strong army, 
had he possessed one. Nevertheless James marched 
north with such troops as were available, leaving 
Dublin on June 16th. He took up a strong position 
on the borders of Ulster and Leinster, thus blocking 
William's way south to the capital, only to abandon 
it again on the news of William's approach, when 
he retired to Drogheda and encamped there. He 
thus gave the w^hole advantage of initiative into the 
hands of his opponent, a brave man and a skillful 
general. 

James seems to have hoped that William's army 
would be mowed down by disease, as Schomberg's 
had been in the preceding campaign. And there is 
reason to believe that Tyrconnell, foreseeing the de- 
feat of James, wished to avoid any serious fighting, 
which would be an obstacle in his way when he 



346 IRELAND. 

sought to patch up a peace with the victor and make 
terms for himself. But his opponent was inspired 
by a very different temper^ and WilHam's army ad- 
vanced steadily southwards^ to find James encamped 
on the southern bank of the Boyne. 

There were several fords by which William's 
army would have to cross on its way south. But 
James was such an incapable general that he did not 
even throw up trenches to defend the fords. Wil- 
liam's army arrived and encamped on the north bank 
of the river, and the next day, June 30thj was em- 
ployed in an artillery duel between the two armies, 
when considerable injury was inflicted on William's 
forces, although he was far stronger in artillery than 
his opponent. During that night, James, already 
certain of defeat, sent away most of his artillery to 
Dublin, leaving only six guns with his army on the 
Boyne. 

It seems tolerably certain that, when the battle 
began again next day, William's army numbered be- 
tween forty-five and fifty thousand, with the usual 
proportion of cavalry, — probably a tenth of the 
whole. JameSj on the other hand, had from twenty 
to twenty-five thousand men, about a tenth of them, 
probably, being mounted ; he had, by his own fault, 



THE JACOBITE WARS. 347 

only six guns against about fifty in William's bat- 
teries. William's line of battle was formed, as usual, 
with the infantry in the center and the cavalry on 
the wings. He gave the elder Schomberg command 
of the center, while Schomberg's son, with the cav- 
alry of the right wing, was sent four or five miles up 
the river to Slane, to cross there and turn the left 
flank of the opposing army. William himself led 
the cavalry on the left wing, and later on in the bat- 
tle, descending the river, crossed at a lower ford. He 
could thus attack the right flank of his opponent ; 
the infantry composing the center of his army ad- 
vancing, meanwhile, under cover of a heavy artillery 
fire, and forcing the fords of the Boyne. 

The river is shaflow here, and in the middle of 
summer the water is nowhere too deep for wading, 
so that it was a very slight protection to the army of 
James. A better general would at least have chosen 
a stronger position, and one which would have given 
him some manifest advantage. Such positions were 
to be found all along the road by which William had 
advanced from Carrickfergus. The country on both 
sides of the Boyne is flat ; rolling meadows with the 
shallow river dividing them—a country giving every 
opportunity to cavalry. 



348 IRELAND. 

William's right^ under the younger Schomberg, 
made several unsuccessful attempts to cross the river 
at Slane, being repeatedly beaten back by Arthur 
O'Neill's horse. Finally, however, the way was 
cleared for him by a vigorous cannonade, to which 
O'Neill, having no cannon, was unable to reply, and 
William's right wing thus forced the passage of the 
Boyne. 

William's center now advanced, and began the 
passage of the river, under cover of a heavy artillery 
fire. Every foot of the advance was stubbornly con- 
tested, and such headway was made by the Irish 
troops that Schomberg's bodyguard was scattered or 
cut to pieces, and he himself was slain. The center 
of William's army was undoubtedly being beaten 
back, when, crossing lower down with eighteen 
squadrons of cavalry, he fiercely attacked the right 
flank of the Irish army and thus turned the possi- 
bility of defeat into certain victory. That the Irish 
troops, although outnumbered two to one and led by 
a coward, fought valiantly, is admitted on all sides. 
They charged and re-charged ten times in succes- 
sion, and only gave way at last under pressure of 
greatly superior numbers. The retreat of the Irish 
army was orderly, — the more so, doubtless, because 



THE JACOBITE WARS. 349 

the former king of England was no longer among 
them, having most valiantly fled to Dublin, and 
thence to Kinsale, where he took ship for France, 
leaving behind him a reputation quite singular in the 
annals of Ireland. 

Within a week after the battle, the Irish army, 
which had preserved order and discipline even in the 
face of the flight of James, occupied Limerick, and 
made preparations to hold that strong position, with 
the untouched resources of the western province be- 
hind them, and the hope, unshaken by their rude ex- 
perience, that the runaway king might reinforce them 
by sea. Through all the events that followed, pres- 
ently to be narrated, it must be understood that Tyr- 
connell was steadily seeking to undermine the reso- 
lution of the Irish army, hoping the sooner to make 
his peace with King William, to secure his Irish 
estates, and, very possibly, be appointed Lord Lieu- 
tenant of Ireland, under the new king. 

William meanwhile brought his army southwards, 
being welcomed to Dublin by the large English ele- 
ment there, and presently continued his march to 
Waterford, which was surrendered to him, as was 
alleged, by Tyrconnell's orders. He also reduced 
Kilkenny, to which Tyrconnell had failed to send re- 



350 IRELAND. 

inforcements, though repeatedly appealed to by its 
commander. About this time, on July 28th or a day 
or two later, the brave garrison of Derry was re- 
lieved by some of William's ships, which broke the 
line of blockade across the river and brought abun- 
dant provisions to the emaciated defenders. 

A section of William's army under Douglas was 
sent to take Athlone, the strong fortress which 
guarded the ford, and later the bridge across the 
Shannon — the high road from Leinster to the western 
province of Connacht, beyond the river. Douglas, 
after a fierce attack lasting seven days, was com- 
pelled to retreat again to the main army encamped 
at Waterford. The French auxiliaries under Lauzun, 
who had not hitherto greatly distinguished themselves 
for valor, losing less than a score of men at the Boyne, 
now deserted Limerick and retreated to Galway, tak- 
ing with them, if the fugitive king may be credited, 
a great quantity of ammunition from the fortress of 
Limerick. 

Finally, on August 9th, William's army appeared 
before Limerick, and the famous siege began. Tyr- 
connell signalized himself by deserting the fords over 
the Shannon and departing to Galway, declaring that 
the town would certainly surrender within a week. 



TKomond Bridge, LimeriGk 



m^^.^ 




THE JACOBITE WARS. 351 

The city, however, Wcas of a different opinion. The 
garrison, under Sarsfield, made vigorous preparation 
for a defence, and a party under Sarsfield himself 
cut off one of William's convoys from Dublin, de- 
stroying the siege-train Avhich was being brought for 
the attack on the city. William's cavalry, taking ad- 
vantage of Tyrconnell's retreat, crossed the ford of 
the Shannon to complete the investment of the city 
on that side, but they presently returned, having 
done nothing effective. 

We hear of more attempts by Tyrconnell to under- 
mine the resolution of the army, and of attacks by 
William's force, which gave him possession of the 
outworks, so that he was able presently to begin 
cannonading the walls, to make a breach for an as- 
sault. The officer in the Irish army whom we have 
already quoted, gives this account of the siege : 
^^ Never was a town better attacked and better de- 
fended than the city of Limerick. William left noth- 
ing unattempted that the art of war, the skill of a 
great captain and the valor of veteran soldiers could 
put in execution to gain the place j and the Irish 
omitted nothing that courage and constancy could 
practice to defend it. The continual assaults of the 
one and the frequent sallies of the other consumed a 



352 IRELAND. 

great many brave men both of the army and the gar- 
rison. On the nineteenth day, William, after fight- 
ing for every inch of ground he gained, having made 
a large breach in the wall, gave a general assault 
which lasted for three hours ; and though his men 
mounted the breach, and some even entered the town, 
they were gallantly repulsed and forced to retire with 
considerable loss. William, resolving to renew the 
assault next day, could not persuade his men to ad- 
vance, though he offered to lead them in person. 
Whereupon, all in a rage, he left the camp, and 
never stopped till he came to Waterford, where he 
took shipping for England ; his army in the mean- 
time retiring by night from Limerick." 

During this first siege of Limerick the garrison 
numbered some twenty thousand, by no means well 
armed. William's besieging army was about forty 
thousand^ with forty cannon and mortars. His loss 
w^as between three and four thousand, while the loss 
of the defenders was about half that number. 

William, presently arriving in England, sent rein- 
forcements to his generals in Ireland, under Lord 
Churchill, afterwards famous as the Duke of Marl- 
borough. Tyrconnell had meantime followed his run- 
away king to France, as was involved in a maze of 



THE JACOBITE WARS. 353 

contradictory designs, the one clear principle of which 
was the future advantage of Tyrconncll. Louis XIV, 
who had reasons of his own for wishing to keep the 
armies of William locked up in Ireland, was alto- 
gether willing to advise and lielp a continuance of 
hostilities in that country. James seems to have 
recognized his incapacity too clearly to attempt any- 
thing definite, or, what is more probable, was too 
irresolute by nature even to determine to give up 
the fight. Tyrconncll himself sincerely wished to 
make his peace with William, so that he might 
once more enjoy the revenues of his estates. The 
Irish army was thoroughly determined to hold out to 
the end. 

With these conflicting desires and designs, no 
single-hearted and resolute action was possible. 
Matters seem to have drifted till about January, 
1691, Avhen Tyrconncll returned; '^ but he brought 
with him no soldiers, very few arms, little provision 
and no money." A month later a messenger came 
direct to Sarsfield, then with the army at Galway, 
from Louis XIV, promising reinforcements under 
the renowned soldier Saint Ruth. This letter to a 
great extent revealed the double part Tyrconncll had 

been playing at the French court, and did much to 

23 



354 IKELAND. 

undermine his credit with the better elements in the 
Irish arm J. 

The French fleet finally arrived at Limerick in 
May, 1691^ under Saint Ruth, bringing a consider- 
able quantity of provisions for the Irish army ; but 
it is doubtful whether this arrival added any real ele- 
ment of strength to the army. The Irish army^ soon 
after this, was assembled at Athlone, to defend the 
passage of the Shannon, Much vigorous fighting 
took place, but Ginkell, William's general, finally 
captured that important fortress in June. The road 
to Galway was now open, and GinkelPs army pre- 
pared to march on that important city, the strongest 
place in Connacht. Saint Ruth prepared to resist 
their approach, fixing his camp at Aughrim, The 
Hill of the Horses, some eighteen miles from Athlone 
and thirty-five from Galway. We may once more 
tell the story in the words of an eye-witness : 

^' Aughrim was then a ruined town, and the castle 
was not much better, situated in a bottom on the 
north side of the hill, where the Irish army encamped. 
The direct way from Ballinasloe was close by the 
castle, but there was another way about, on the 
south-east side of the hill. The rest of the ground 
fronting the camp was a marsh, passable only for 



THE JACOBITE WARS. 355 

foot. The army of Ginkell appeared in sight of 
Aiighrim on July 12th. The Irish army, composed 
of about ten thousand foot, two thousand men-at-arms, 
and as many light horse, was soon drawn up by Saint 
Ruth in two lines ; the cavalry on both wings flank- 
ing the foot J and having placed Chevalier de Tesse 
on the right wing of the horse, and Sarsiield on the 
left, and giving their several posts to the rest of the 
chief commanders. Saint Ruth obliged himself to no 
certain place, but rode constantly from one side to 
another to give the necessary orders where he saw 
occasion. Ginkell being now come up at so near a 
distance that his guns and other battering engines 
might do execution, he ordered them to be discharged, 
and as he had a vast number of them he made them 
play incessantly on the Irish army, hoping by that 
means to force them from the hill, which was of great 
advantage. But the Irish, encouraged by the pres- 
ence and conduct of Saint Ruth, kept their ground 
and beat the English as often as they advanced to- 
wards them. The fight continued from noon till sun- 
set, the Irish foot having still the better of the enemy : 
and Saint Ruth, observing the advantage of his side, 
and that the enemy's foot Avere much disordered, was 
resolved, by advancing with the cavalry, to make the 



356 lEELAND. 

victory complete, when an unlucky shot from one of 
the terrible new engines, hitting him in the head, 
made an end of his life, and took away the courage 
of his army. For Ginkell, observing the Irish to be 
in some disorder, gave a notable conjecture that the 
general was either killed or wounded, whereupon he 
commanded his army to advance. The Irish cavalry, 
discouraged by the death of Saint Ruth, and none of 
the general officers coming to head them in his place, 
gave back, and quitted the field. The foot who were 
engaged with the enemy, knowing nothing of the 
general's death or the retreat of the cavalry, con- 
tinued fighting till they were surrounded by the whole 
English army 5 so that the most of them were cut oif, 
and no quarter given but to a very few ; the rest, by 
favor of the night then approaching, for Saint Ruth 
was killed about sunset, made their escape.'' 

To this we may add the testimony of the runaway 
monarch : '^ The Irish behaved with great spirit. 
They convinced the English they had to do with men 
no less resolute than themselves. Never assault was 
made with greater fury nor sustained with greater 
obstinacy. The Irish foot repulsed the enemy several 
times, particularly in the center. They even looked 
upon the victory as certain The Irish lost 



THE JACOBITE WARS. 357 

four thousand men. The loss of the English was not 
much inferior." 

The army of Ginkell, thus in possession of the key 
of Connacht, advanced upon its most important city, 
arriving before Galway a few days after the battle 
of Aughrim. Galway, however, was full of divided 
counsels, and speedily surrendered, so that Limerick 
alone remained. Limerick was greatly weakened, 
now that Galway, and with Galway the whole of 
Connacht to which alone Limerick could look for sup- 
plies, was in the hands of the enemy. Ginkell turned 
all his efforts in the direction of Limerick, appearing 
before the city and pitching his camp there on August 
25, 1691. Beginning with the next day, our narrator 
tells us, ^^ he placed his cannon and other battering, 
engines, which played furiously night and day with- 
out intermission, reducing that famous city almost to 
ashes. No memorable action, however, happened 
till the night between September 15 and 16, when he 
made a bridge of boats over the Shannon, which 
being ready by break of day, he passed over with a 
considerable body of horse and foot on the Connacht 
side of the river, without any opposition. This so 
alarmed Sheldon, who commanded the cavalry at that 
time, that without staying for orders, he immediately 



358 IRELAND. 

retired to a mountain a good distance from Limerick, 
and marched with such precipitation and disorder, 
that if a hundred of the enemy's horse had charged 
him in the rear, they would in all likelihood have de- 
feated his whole party, though he had near upon four 
thousand men-at-arms and light horse ; for the man, 
if he was faithful, wanted either courage or conduct, 
and the party were altogether discouraged to be 
under his command. But Ginkell did not advance 
far, and after showing himself on that side of the 
bridge, returned back into his camp the same day. 
Yet Sheldon never rested till he came, about mid- 
night, fifteen miles from the Shannon, and encamped 
in a fallow field where there was not a bit of grass to 
be had : as if he had designed to harass the horses by 
day and starve them by night Gink ell, under- 
standing that the Irish horse was removed to such a 
distance, passed the river on the twenty-third day 
with the greatest part of his cavalry, and a consider- 
able body of foot, and encamped half-way between 
Limerick and the L'ish horse camp, whereby he hin- 
dered all communication between them and the town. 
On the twenty-fourth, the captains within Limerick 
sent out a trumpet, desiring a parley," and as a re- 
sult of this parley, a treaty was ultimately signed be- 



THE JACOBITE WARS. 359 

tween the two parties, Limerick was evacuated, and 
the war came to an end. This was early in October, 

1691. 

The war had, therefore, lasted nearly four years, 
a sufficient testimony to the military qualities of the 
Irish, seeing that throughout the whole period they 
had matched against them greatly superior numbers 
of the finest troops in Europe, veterans trained in 
continental wars, and at all points better armed and 
equipped than their adversaries. 

What moves our unbounded admiration, however, 
is to see the troops displaying these qualities of valor 
not only without good leadership, but in face of the 
cowardice of the English king, and of duplicity 
amounting to treachery on the part of his chief ad- 
herents. Foremost among these time-servers was 
Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnell, whose name shows him 
to have sprung from one of the Norman families, 
and we see here the recurrence of a principle which 
had worked much harm in the eight years' war of 
the preceding generation. The Duke of Ormond, 
sprung from the Norman Butlers, was then the chief 
representative of the policy of intrigue, and many of 
the reverses of both these wars are to be attributed 
to the same race. 



360 IRELAND. 

It is tragical to find the descendants of the old 
Norman barons, who at any rate were valiant fighters, 
descending thus to practices quite unworthy ; yet we 
can easily understand how the fundamental injustice of 
the feudal principle on which they stood, not less than 
the boundless abuse of that already bad principle un- 
der the first Stuarts, could not fail to undermine their 
sense of honor and justice, preparing them at length for 
a policy of mere self-seeking, carried on by methods 
always doubtful, and often openly treacherous. 

The old tribal chieftains lived to fight, and went 
down fighting into the night of time. Owen Roe 
O'Neill, last great son of a heroic race, splendidly 
upheld their high tradition and ideal. No nobler 
figure, and few more gifted captains, can be found 
in the annals of those warlike centuries. The valor 
of Cuculaiii, the wisdom of Concobar, the chivalry of 
Fergus — all were his, and with them a gentle and toler- 
ant spirit in all things concerning religion, very admir- 
able in an age when so many men, in other things not 
lacking in elements of nobility, were full of bitter ani- 
mosity, and zealous to persecute all those who diff'ered 
from them concerning things shrouded in mystery. 

It may be said, indeed, that Owen Roe is in this only 
a type of all his countrymen, who, though they suf- 



THE JACOBITE WARS. 3G1 

fered centuries of persecution for a religious principle, 
never persecuted in return. Their conduct through- 
out the epoch of religious war and persecution was al- 
ways tolerant and full of the sense of justice, contrast- 
ing in this, and contrasting to their honor, with the 
conduct of nearly every other nation in Christendom. 
The history of Ireland, for the half century which 
followed this war, offers few salient features for de- 
scription. The Catholics during all this time were 
under the ban of penal laws. The old tribal chiefs 
were gone. The Norman lords were also gone. The 
life of the land hardly went beyond the tilling of the 
fields and the gathering of the harvests. And even 
here, men only labored for others to enter into their 
labor. The right of private taxation, confirmed by 
law, and now forfeited by the feudal lords, was given 
as a reward to the adherents of the dominant party 
in England, and their yearly exactions were enforced 
by an armed garrison. The more vigorous and rest- 
less elements of our race, unable to accept these con- 
ditions of fife, sailed in great numbers to the conti- 
nent, and entered the armies of many European 
powers. It is estimated that, during the half century 
after the Treaty of Limerick, fully half a million 
Irishmen fell in the service of France alone. 



CONCLUSION. 



XV. 

CONCLUSION. 
A.D. 1750-1901. 

The Treaty of Limerick, signed when the army 
of Sarsfield came to terms with the besiegers, guar- 
anteed equal liberty to all Ireland, without regard to 
difference of religion. There is no doubt that Wil- 
liam of Nassau, scion of a race which had done much 
for liberty, a house that had felt the bitterness of op- 
pression, would willingly have carried this treaty out 
in a spirit of fidelity and honor. But he was help- 
less. The dominant powers in England and Ireland 
were too strong for him, and within the next few 
years the treaty was violated in letter and spirit, and 
the indigenous population of Ireland was disarmed, 
deprived of civil rights, reduced to servitude. 

It is best, wherever possible, to secure the word 
of witnesses who cannot be suspected of prejudice 
or favor. We shall do this, therefore, in describing 
the condition of Ireland during the eighteenth cen- 
tury. We find the Lord Chancellor of England de- 
claring, during the first half of that period, that ^' in 

(365 ) 



366 IRELAND. 

the eye of the law no Catholic existed in Ireland." 
The Lord Chief Justice affirms the same doctrine : 
" It appears plain that the law does not suppose any 
such person to exist as an Irish Roman Catholic." 
The law, therefore, as created by England for Ire- 
land, deprived of all civil, religious, intellectual and 
moral rights four-fifths of the whole population, and 
gave them over as a lawful prey to the remaining 
fifth : a band of colonists and adventurers, who 
favored the policy of the party then dominant in 
England. This was the condition of the law. We 
shall see, presently, what was its result on the life of 
the nation. It should be a warning, for all time, of 
the dangers which arise when one nation undertakes 
to govern another. For it must be clearly under- 
stood that the Sovreign and Parliament of England 
believed that in this they stood for honor and right- 
eousness, and had a true insight into the spirit and 
will of the Most High. It was, indeed, on this supe- 
rior knowledge of the divine will that they based 
their whole policy j for what else is the meaning of 
legal discrimination against the holders of a certain 
form of faith f 

In the second half of the eighteenth century, in 
1775, the Congress of the United States sent its 



Salmon Fishery, Galway 



CONCLUSION. 367 

sympathy in these words to the people of Ireland : 
"We know that you are not without your griev- 
ances ; we sympathize with you in your distress, and 
we are pleased to find that the design of subjugating 
us has persuaded the administration to dispense to 
Ireland some vagrant rays of ministerial sunshine. 
Even the tender mercies of the government have 
long been cruel to you. In the rich pastures of Ire- 
land many hungry parasites are fed, and grow strong 
to labor for her destruction." 

Three years later, in 1778, Benjamin Franklin 
wrote thus to the Irish people : " The misery and 
distress which your ill-fated country has been so fre- 
quently exposed to, and has so often experienced, by 
such a combination of rapine, treachery and violence 
as would have disgraced the name of government in 
the most arbitrary country in the world, has most 
sincerely affected your friends in America, and has 
engaged the most serious attention of Congress." 

It must be assumed that the men who drew up the 
Declaration of Independence knew the value of 
words, and that when they spoke of misery and 
cruelty, of rapine, treachery and distress, they meant 
what they said. Franklin's letter brings us to the 
eve of the Volunteer Movement, of which much has 



368 lEELAND. 

been said in a spirit of warm praise^ but which 
seems to have wrought evil rather than good. This 
Movement, at first initiated wholly by the Scottish 
and English colonists and their adherents, was later 
widened so as to include a certain number of the in- 
digenous population ; and an armed force was thus 
formed, which was able to gain certain legislative 
favors from England, with the result that a Par- 
liament sitting in Dublin from 1782 to 1799 passed 
laws with something more resembling justice than 
Ireland was accustomed to. 

But this Parliament was in no sense national or 
representative. It was wholly composed of the 
Scottish and English colonists and their friends, and 
the indigenous population had no voice in its delib- 
erations. It is, therefore, the more honor to Henry 
Grattan that we find him addressing that Parliament 
thus : ^' I will never claim freedom for six hundred 
thousand of my countrymen while I leave two mil- 
lion or more of them in chains. Give the Catholics 
of Ireland their civil rights and their franchise j give 
them the power to return members to the Irish Par- 
liament, and let the nation be represented.'' At this 
time, therefore, four-fifths of the nation had neither 
civil rights nor franchise, — because they differed 



CONCLUSION. 369 

from the dominant party in England as to the pre- 
cedence of the disciples of Jesus. 

It may be supposed^ however, that, even without 
civil or religious rights, the fate of the people of Ire- 
land was tolerable ; that a certain measure of happi- 
ness and well-being was theirs, if not by law, at least 
by grace. The answer to this we shall presently see. 
The Volunteer Movement, as we saw, included cer- 
tain elements of the indigenous population. The 
dominant party in England professed to see in this a 
grave danger, and determined to ward off that 
danger by sending an army to Ireland, and quarter- 
ing troops on the peasants of all suspected districts. 
We must remember that the peasants^ on whom a 
hostile soldiery was thus quartered, had no civil 
rights as a safeguard ; that the authorities were 
everywhere bitterly hostile, full of cowardly ani- 
mosity towards them. 

The result we may best describe in the words of 
the English generals at the head of this army. We 
find Sir Ralph Abercrombie speaking thus : " The 
very disgraceful frequency of great crimes and 
cruelties, and the many complaints of the conduct 
of the troops in this kingdom — Ireland — has too un- 
fortunately proved the army to be in a state of licen- 

24 



370 IRELAND. 

tiousness that renders it formidable to everyone ex- 
cept the enemy." Sir Ralph Abercrombie declared 
himself so frightened and disgusted at the conduct 
of the soldiers that he threw up his commission, and 
refused the command of the army. 

General Lake, who was sent to take his place, 
speaks thus : ^^ The state of the country, and its 
occupation previous to the insurrection, is not to be 
imagined, except by those who witnessed the atroci- 
ties of every description committed by the mili- 
tary," — and he gives a list of hangings, burnings 
and murders. 

Finally, we have the testimony of another English 
soldier. Sir William Napier, speaking some years 
later : " What manner of soldiers were these fellows 
who were let loose upon the wretched districts, kill- 
ing, burning and confiscating every man's property f 
. . . We ourselves were young at the time j yet, 
being connected with the army, we were continually 
among the soldiers, listening with boyish eagerness 
to their experiences : and well remember, with horror, 
to this day, the tales of lust, of bloodshed and pillage, 
and the recital of their foul actions against the mis- 
erable peasantry, which they used to relate." 

The insurrection against this misery and violence, 



CONCLUSION. 371 

wliich began in May, 1798, and its repression, we 
may pass over, coming to their political consequences. 
It is admitted on all hands that the morality and re- 
lioion of England reached their lowest ebb at this 
very time ; we are, therefore, ready to learn that the 
Act of Union between England and Ireland, which 
followed on the heels of this insurrection, Avas carried 
by unlimited bribery and corruption. The Parlia- 
ment of Ireland, as we know, was solely composed of 
Protestants, the Catholics having neither the right 
to sit nor the right to vote ; so that the ignominy of 
this universal corruption must be borne by the class 
of English and Scottish settlers alone. 

The curious may read lists of the various bribes 
paid to secure the passage of the Act of Union in 
1800, the total being about six million dollars — a 
much more considerable sum then than now. And 
it must be remembered that this entire sum was 
drawn from the revenues of Ireland, besides the 
whole cost of an army numbering 125,000 men, 
which England maintained in Ireland at the time the 
Act was passed. What the amenities of the last 
three years of the eighteenth century cost Ireland 
we may judge from these figures : in 1797, while the 
hangings, burnings and torturings which brought 



372 IKELAND. 

about the insurrection of the following year were in 
an early stage, the national debt of Ireland was under 
$20,000,000 ; three years later that debt amounted 
to over $130,000,000. It is profitless to pursue the 
subject further. We may close it by saying that 
hardly can we find in history a story more discredit- 
able to our common humanity than the conduct of 
England towards Ireland during the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries. 

The French Revolution wrought a salutary change 
of heart in the governing class in England, for it 
must in justice be added that the tyranny of this 
class was as keenly felt by the ^' lower orders" in 
England as in Ireland itself. It is fairly certain that 
only the Reform Bill and the change of sovreigns 
which shortly followed prevented an insurrection of 
the peasants and servile classes in England which 
would have outdone in horrors the French Revolution 
itself. The Reform Bill was the final surrender of 
the baronial class in England 5 a surrender rather 
apparent than real, however, since most of the 
political and all the social power in the land still re- 
mains in the hands of the same class. 

Through the salutary fear which was inspired by 
the horrors of the French Revolution j and perhaps 



O'Conneil's Statttc, DuhUn 



CONCLUSION. 373 

through a certain moral awakening, the governing 
classes in England came to a less vicious mind in 
their dealings with Ireland. They were, therefore, 
the more ready to respond to the great national move- 
ment headed by Daniel O'Connell, with his demand 
that Irishmen might all equally enjoy civil and polit- 
ical rights, regardless of their form of faith. In 
1829, as the result of this great movement, the 
Catholics were finally relieved of the burden of penal 
laws which, originally laid on them b}^ the Tudors, 
were rendered even more irksome and more unjust 
by Cromwell and William of Nassau, — men in other 
things esteemed enlightened and lovers of liberty. 

Thus the burden of persecution w^as finally taken 
away. To those who imposed it, the system of 
Penal Law^s will remain a deep dishonor. But to 
those w^ho bore that burden it has proved a safeguard 
of spiritual purity and faith. The religion of the 
indigenous race in Ireland was saved from the degen- 
eration and corruption wdiich ever besets a wealthy 
and prosperous church, and which never fails to en- 
gender hypocrisy, avarice and ambition. In England, 
the followers of the Apostles exercise the right to 
levy a second tax on the produce of all tilled lands, 
a second burden imposed upon the conquered Saxons. 



374 lEELAND. 

As a result^ the leaders of the church live in palaces, 
while the people, the humbler part of their congrega- 
tiouj have sunk into practical atheism. In France, 
the reaction against a like state of things brought 
the church to the verge of destruction, and led the 
masses to infidelity and materialism. The result to 
the moral life of the people is too well known to need 
remark. Not less evil consequences have flowed 
from the enriching of the church in other lands. 
That wealth has always carried with it the curse, so 
prophetically pronounced, against those who trust in 
riches. For the ministers of religion, in a supreme 
degree, the love of money has been the root of evil. 

We may, therefore, see in the spirituality and 
unworldliness of the native church in Ireland a re- 
sult of all the evil and persecution the church suf- 
fered during almost three hundred years. From 
this purification by fire it comes that the people of 
Ireland are almost singular throughout Christendom 
in believing sincerely in the religion of gentleness 
and mercy — the kingdom which is not of this world. 

In 1829 the Catholics were at last freed from the 
galling burdens which had weighed on them since 
1537, when they failed to recognize Henry VIII as 
the representative of Grod on earth. They were still, 



CONCLUSION. 375 

however, under the shadow of a grave injustice, 
which continued to rest on them for many years. 
When their church lands were confiscated and their 
faith proscribed by law under the Tudors, a new 
clergy was overlaid on the country, a clergy which 
consented to recognize the Tudors and their succes- 
sors as their spiritual head. As a reward, these new 
ministers of religion were allowed to levy a second 
tax on land, exactly as in England ; and this tax they 
continued to collect until their privilege was finally 
taken away by Gladstone and the English Liberals. 
Needless to say that through three centuries and 
more four-fifths of this tax was levied on the indige- 
nous Catholics, in support of what was to them an 
alien, and for most of the time a persecuting church. 

One heavy disability still lay on the whole land. 
With its partial removal a principle has emerged of 
such world-wide importance in the present, and even 
more in the future, that we may well trace its history 
in detail. 

The Normans, as we saw, paid themselves for con- 
quering the Saxons and Angles by assuming a per- 
petual right to tax their produce ; a right still in full 
force, and forming the very foundation of the ruling 
class in England. The land tenure thus created was, 



376 IRELAND. 

under the Tudors and the first Stuarts, bodily trans- 
ferred to Ireland. In Ireland the land had ever been 
owned by the people, each tribe, as representing a 
single family, holding a certain area by communal 
tenure, and electing a chief to protect its territory 
from aggression. For this elective chieftainship the 
English law-courts substituted something wholly dif- 
ferent : a tenure modeled on the feudal servitude of 
England. This new principle made the land of the 
country the property not of the whole people but of a 
limited and privileged class : the favorites of the rul- 
ing power — ^''hungry parasites,'^ as the Congress of 
1775 called them. This ^^ landed " class continued 
to hold absolute sway until quite recently, and it was 
this class which succumbed to bribery in 1800, and 
passed the Act of Legislative Union with England. 
The clergy of the Established church were little more 
than the private chaplains of the "landed" class, the 
two alien bodies supporting each other. 

Folly, however, was the child of injustice ; for so 
shortsighted were these hungry parasites that they 
developed a system of land-laws so bad as to cause 
universal poverty, and bring a reaction which is 
steadily sweeping the "landed" class of Ireland to 
extinction and oblivion. The fundamental principle 



CONCLUSION. 377 

of these bad land-laws was this : the tenant was com- 
pelled to renew his lease from year to year ; and 
whenever, during the year, he had in any way im- 
proved the land in his possession, — by draining 
marshes, by reclaiming waste areas, by adding farm- 
buildings, — the " owner " of the land could demand 
an enhanced rent, as the condition of renewing the 
lease. The tenant had to submit to a continually as- 
cending scale of extortion, sanctioned by law and ex- 
acted by armed force ; or, as an alternative, he had 
to give up the fruit of his industry without compen- 
sation and without redress. 

Anything more certain to destroy energy, to cut 
at the roots of thrift, to undermine all the best quali- 
ties of manhood, it would be impossible to imagine. 
The slave on the plantation could in time purchase 
his freedom. The tiller of the soil in Ireland found, 
on the contrary, that the greater his industry, the 
greater was the sum he had to pay for the right to ex- 
ercise it. We saw that there never was any pretence 
of free contract in the feudal land-tenure of England ; 
that there never was any pretence of an honest bar- 
gain between farmer and landlord, for their mutual 
benefit. The tenant paid the landlord for services 
rendered, not to him, but to his Norman conqueror. 



378 lEELAND. 

So it was, in an even greater degree, in Ireland. 
There was no pretence at all that tenant and landlord 
entered into a free contract for their mutual benefit. 
Nor did either law, custom, religion or opinion re- 
quire the landlord to make any return to his tenants 
for the share of the fruit of their toil he annually 
carried away. 

The tiller of the soil, therefore, labored from year 
to year, through droughts and rains, through heat 
and cold, facing bad seasons with good. At the end 
of the year, after hard toil had gathered in the fruit 
of the harvest, he saw the best part of that fruit legally 
confiscated by an alien, who would have been speech- 
less with wonder, had it been suggested to him that 
anything was due from him in return. Nor was that 
all. This alien was empowered, and by the force of 
public opinion incited, to exact the greatest possible 
share of the tiller's produce, and, as we saw, he was 
entitled to the whole benefit of whatever improve- 
ments the tiller of the soil had made ; and could — and 
constantly did — expel the cultivator who was unable 
or unwilling to pay a higher tax, as the penalty for 
improving the land. 

It may be said that bad as this all was, it was not 
without a remedy j that the cultivator had the choice 



CONCLUSION. 379 

of other occupations, and might let the land lie fallow, 
while its ^' owner " starved. But this only brings to 
mind the fact that during the eighteenth century 
England had legislated with the deliberate intention 
of destroying the manufactures and shipping of Ire- 
land, and had legislated with success. It should be 
added that this one measure affected all residents in 
Ireland equally, whatever faith or race. There Avas 
practically no alternative before the cultivator. He 
had the choice between robbery and starvation. 

It would be more than miraculous if this condition 
of things had not borne its fruit. The result was 
this : it ceased to be the interest of the cultivator of 
the land to till it effectively, or to make any improve- 
ment whatever, whether by drainage, reclaiming 
waste land, or building, or by adopting better agri- 
cultural methods. In every case, his increase of 
labor, of foresight and energy, would have met with 
but one reward : when the time came to renew the 
lease, he woidd have been told that his land had 
doubled in value during the year, and that he must, 
therefore, pay twice as much for the privilege of till- 
ing it. If he refused, he at once forfeited every claim 
to the fruit of his own work, the whole of his improve- 
ments becoming the property of the land owner. 



380 IKELAND. 

The cultivators^ as an inevitable consequence^ lost 
every incentive to labor^ energy^ foresight and the 
moral qualities which are fostered by honestly re- 
warded work. They worked as little as possible on 
their farms^ and the standard of cultivation steadily 
declined, while the mode of living grew perpetually 
worse. If it were intended to reduce a whole popu- 
lation to hopeless poverty, no better or more certain 
way could be imagined. 

The steady lowering of the arts of cultivation, the 
restriction of crops, the tendency to keep as close as 
possible to the margin of sustenance, thus zealously 
fostered, opened the way for the disastrous famine 
of 1846 and 1847, which marks the beginning of a 
rapid decline in population, — a decrease which has 
never since been checked. The inhabitants of Ire- 
land shortly before the famine numbered considerably 
over eight millions. Since that time, there has been 
a decrease of about four millions — a thing without 
parallel in Christendom. 

The amendment of the land-laws, which were di- 
rectly responsible for these evil results, was by no 
means initiated in consequence of the famine. It 
was due wholly to a great national agitation, carried 
out under the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell, 



CONCLUSION. 381 

which led to the land-acts of 1881 and 1887. These 
new laws at last guaranteed to the cultivator the fruit 
of his toil, and guarded him against arbitrary in- 
crease of the tax levied on him by the "" owner " of 
the land. But they did not stop here ; they initiated 
a principle which will finally make the cultivator ab- 
solute owner of his land, and abolish the feudal class 
with their rights of private taxation. This cannot 
fail to react on England, so that the burdens of the 
Ansrles and Saxons will at last be lifted from their 
shoulders, as a result of the example set them by the 
Gaels, for generations working persistently, and per- 
sistently advancing towards their goal. Nor will the 
tide thus set in motion spread only to Saxon and 
Anoxic : its influence will be felt wherever those who 
work are deprived unjustly of the fruit of their toil, 
whether by law or without law. The evils suffered 
by Ireland will thus be not unavailing ; they will 
rather bring the best of all rewards : a reward to 
others, of whatever race and in whatever land, who 
are victims of a like injustice. 

The story of Ireland, through many centuries, has 
thus been told. The rest belongs to the future. We 
have seen the strong life of the prime bringing forth 
the virtues of war and peace ; we have seen valor 



382 IKELAND. 

and beauty and wisdom come to perfect ripeness in 
the old pagan world. We have seen that old pagan 
world transformed by the new teaching of gentleness 
and mercy, a consciousness, wider, more humane and 
universal, added from above to the old genius of in- 
dividual life. With the new teaching came the cul- 
ture of Rome, and something of the lore of Hellas 
and Palestine, of Egypt and Chaldea, warmly wel- 
comed and ardently cherished in Ireland at a time 
when Europe was submerged under barbarian in- 
roads and laid waste by heathen hordes. We have 
seen the faith and culture thus preserved among our 
western seas generously shared with the nascent na- 
tions who emerged from the pagan invasions ; the 
seeds of intellectual and spiritual life, sown with faith 
and fervor as far as the Alps and the Danube, spring- 
ing up with God-given increase, and ripening to an 
abundant harvest. 

To that bright epoch of our story succeeded cen- 
turies of growing darkness and gathering storm. 
The forces of our national life, which until then had 
found such rich expression and flowered in such 
abundant beauty, were now checked, driven back- 
ward and inward, through war, oppression and devas- 
tation, until a point was reached when the whole in- 



CONCLUSION. 383 

digenous population had no vestige of religious or 
civil rights ; when they ceased even to exist in the 
eyes of the law. 

The tide of life, thus forced inward, gained a firm 
possession of the invisible world, with the eternal re- 
alities indwelling there. Thus fixed and founded in 
the real, that tide turned once again, flowing out- 
wards and sweeping before it all the barriers in its 
way. The population of Ireland is diminishing in 
numbers ; but the race to which they belong in- 
creases steadily : a race of clean life, of unimpaired 
vital power, unspoiled by wealth or luxury, the most 
virile force in the New World. 

It happens very rarely, under those mysterious 
laws which rule the life of all humanity, the laws 
which work their majestic will through the ages, 
using as their ministers the ambitions and passions 
of men — it happens rarely that a race keeps its un- 
broken life through thirty centuries, transformed 
time after time by new spiritual forces, yet in genius 
remaining ever the same. It may be doubted 
whether even once before throughout all history a 
race thus long-lived has altogether escaped the taint 
of corruption and degeneration. Never before, we 
may confidently say, has a single people emerged 



384 IRELAND. 

from such varied vicissitudes^ stronger at the end in 
genius^ in spiritual and moral power^ than at the be- 
ginning^ richer in vital force, clearer in understand- 
ing, in every way more mature and humane. 

For this is the real fruit of so much evil valiantly 
endured : a deep love of freedom, a hatred of op- 
pression, a knowledge that the wish to dominate is a 
fruitful source of wrong. The new age now dawning 
before us carries many promises of good for all hu- 
manity ; not less, it has its dangers, grave and full 
of menace 5 threatening, if left to work unchecked, 
to bring lasting evil to our life. Never before, it is 
true, have there been so wide opportunities for mate- 
rial well-being ; but, on the other hand, never before 
have there been such universal temptations toward a 
low and sensual ideal. Our very mastery over natu- 
ral forces and material energies entices us away from 
our real goal, hides from our eyes the human and 
divine powers of the soul, with which we are endur- 
ingly concerned. Our skill in handling nature's 
lower powers may be a means of great good 5 not 
less may it bring forth unexampled evil. The op- 
portunities of well-being are increased j the opportu- 
nities of exclusive luxury are increased in equal 
measure ; exclusion may bring resentment j resent- 



CONCLUSION. 385 

nient may call forth oppression, armed with new weap- 
ons, guided by wider understanding, but prompted by 
the same corrupt spirit as of old. 

In the choice which our new age must make be- 
tween these two ways, very much may be done for 
the enduring well-being of mankind by a race full 
of clean vigor, a race taught by stern experience 
the evil of tyranny and oppression, a race pro- 
foundly believing the religion of gentleness and 
mercy, a race full of the sense of the invisible 
world, the world of our immortality. 

We see in Ireland a land with a wonderful past, 

rich in tradition and varied lore ; a land where the 

memorials of the ages, built in enduring stone, would 

in themselves enable us to trace the life and progress 

of human history *, we see in Ireland a land full of a 

singular fascination and beauty, where even the hills 

and rivers speak not of themselves but of the spirit 

which builds the worlds ; a beauty, whether in 

brightness or gloom, finding its exact likeness in 

no other land *, we see all this, but w^e see much 

more : not a memory of the past, but a promise of 

the future ; no offering of earthly Avealth, but rather 

a gift to the soul of man ; not for Ireland only, but 

for all mankind. 

25 



INDEX. 



Abbey-dorney, 303 

Abbey-feale, 303 

Abbey-leix, 303 

Abbey of Balliutober, 305 

Abbey-quarter, 29 

Abercrombie, Sir Ralph, words 

of, 369, 370 
Achill Island, 30 
Act of Union, 371 
Aed Allan, 225, 231 
Aed Finnliat, 247 
Aed Eoin, 225 
Aed, son of Coloran, 226 
Ailill, 130, 131, 132, 141, 342, 146, 

147, 152 
Aiterui, 150 
Alfred, king of the Northumbrian 

Saxons, 232 
Alfred, king, ode of to the coun- 
try he visited, 232, 233 
Alny, 120, 129 
Amargin, 150 
Ambigatos, 103 
Ancient seats of learning, 221 
Ancient seats of learning, studies 

therein, 221,222 
Anglicans, 322 

Angus, the Young, 92, 95, 96, 173 
" Annals," history of the times as 

recorded in the, 235, 252 
"Annals," quotations from, 224, 

244, 264, 277, 293 
Antrim, 5, 196 
Archaic Darkness, 11 
Archaic Dawn, 12 
Ardan, 120, 129 
Ard-Maca, 200 
Armagh, 200, 208, 232, 241 
At-Cliat,242, 243,275 
Athlone, 140, 350, 354 
Ath-uincc, 163 
Aughrim, 354, 355 



Ballinasloe, 354 

Ballysadare, 27, 87, 90 

Balor of the Evil Eve, 90, 91, 93 

Bangor, 221, 239, 240, 250, 342 

Bann, 146 

Bantry Bay, 104 

Barrow, valley of the, 42 

Battle of Kinvarra, 162 

Battle of the Headland of the 

Kings, 13 
Battle-verses, 248, 249 
Bav of Murbolg, 143 
Bay of Sligo, 29 
Bective Abbey, 301 
Bede, Venerable, 218 
Belgadan, 85 
Beltane, festival of, 47 
Beltaney, 47 

Black Lion Cromlech, 46 
Black water, 39, 82 
Bonamargy Abbev, 396 
Book of Kells, 209, 249 
Boyne, the, 5, 150, 242, 350 
Brandon Hill, 42 
Breagho, 34 

Breas, 83, 84, 99, 91, 105 
Breg, 149 

Brehou Laws, the, 206 
Brehon Laws, changes of, effected 

by St. Patrick, 207, 316 
Bruce, Edward, invasion by, 292 
Bruce, Edward, death of, 293 
Brugh, on the Boyne, 93, 95 
Bundoran, 29 

Gael, 163, 165, 194, 262 

Gael, poem of, 164, 165 

Gaher, 161 

Caherconree, 32 

Cailte, 162, 166 

Gairbre. 89, 167, 168, 173. 241 

Cairpre Nia Fer, 146, 117, 152 

(387) 



388 



INDEX. 



Callan Eiver, 199 

Calpurn, 182 

Cautyre, 119, 123, 143 

Carlingford Lough, 241 

Carlingford Mountains, 44 

Carrickfergus, 331, 344, 345, 347 

Carrowmore, 27, 29 

Cataract of the Oaks, 87, 90, 91 

Catbad, 141, 142, 150 

Cavan, 4(J 

Cavancarragh, 35, 66 

Cealleac, 224 

Charlemont, castle of, 343 

Chevalier de Tesse, 355 

Chiefs of Tara, 82 

Chieftain of the Silver Arm, 91 

Chronicler's record of battles 

fought, 210, 211, 212, 217, 218 
Chronicles of Ulster, 218 
Church architecture, 298 
Ciar, 104 

Cistercian Abbey, 306 
Clare, 31, 62 
Clare Abbey, 306 
Clidna, 166 
Clocar, 161 
Clondalkin, 241 
Clonmacnoise, 208 
Cluain Bronaig, 226 
Coleraine, 331 
Colum Kill, 208, 212 
Colum Kill, death of, 215 
Colum Kill, verses written by, 

213, 214 
Colum of the Churches, 223, 237 
Conall Cernac, 149, 151 
Concobar, 13, 113, 114, 117, 121, 

122, 123, 124, 129, 130, 131, 141, 

142, 143, 144, 145, 147, 148, 149, 

150, 151, 152, 177, 194, 246, 258, 

262, 360 
Conditions existing in earlv 

years, 219, 220, 221, 222 
Congus the Abbot, 225 
Connacht, 5, 88, 133, 140, 144, 350, 

357 
Connemara, 85 
Conn, lord of Connacht, 162 
Conn of the Five-Score Battles, 

88, 162 
Copyright decision, an early, 

213 
Cork, 5 
Cormac, 167, 171, 172 



Cormac, precepts of, 167, 168, 169, 

170, 171 
Coroticus, 195 
Corrib, 85 
Crede of the Yellow Hair, 163, 

178, 194, 262 
Crimtan of the Yellow Hair, 162' 
Cromlech-builders, the, 51, 68 
Cromlech of Howth, 43 
Cromlech of Lisbellaw, 47 
Ci'omlech of Lough Eea, 46 
Cromlechs, 27, 2S, 29, 30, 31, 37, 

39, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 51, 52. 53, 

54, 55, 56, 57, 58 
Cromwell, 334, 339 
Croom, 161 
Cruacan, 131, 141, 146 
Cryptic Designs on cromlechs, 47 
Cuailgne, 132 
Cuigead Sreing, 88 
Culdaff, 47 
Cumal, 162 
Curlew hills, 37, 131 
Cuculain, 13, 14, 15, 16, 133, 134, 

135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 143, 144, 

145, 152, 155, 181, 194, 246, 262, 

360 

Dagda Mor, 96, 148 
Dagda, the Mighty, 92, 95 
Daire, 132, 133^ 200, 262 
Danes, conversion of the, 275 
Danish Pyramid of Ul)y, 97 
Dark Ages, the, 260, 261, 262 
Day of Spirits, 140 
De Danaans, the, 77, 79, 80, 82, 

84, 86, 87, 89, 91, 93, 94, 95, 96, 

97, 98, 99, 103, 105, 106, 112, 132, 

148 
De Courcey, 277 
De Courceys, the, 319 
Deer-park, 29 
Deirdre, 13, 14, 15, 115, 123, 124, 

129, 130, 178, 262 
Deirdre, the fate of, 116, 117, 113, 

119, 120, 121, 122 
Deirdre, the Lament of, 125 
De Lacvs, the, 319 
Derry, 331, 341, 342, 344, 350 
Devenish, 250 
Devenish Island, 221 
Diarmuid, 171, 172, 173 
Dicu, 240 
Dingle Bay, 104 



INDEX. 



389 



Dinn-Eig by the Barrow, 146 

Disseuters, 322 

Domnall, 211, 231 

Donaghpatrick, 208 

Doucad, 231, 232 

Douegal, 29, 47 

Donegal Highlands, 26 

Donegal ranges, 5 

Douglas, 350 

Douiu Cain, 81 

Down, 5, 46 

Down Patrick, 198,240 

Drogheda, 342, 345 

Druids, 140 

Druim Dean, 162 

Drnnibo, 46 

Dublin, 5, 252, 340, 345 

Dublin Parliament, 368 

Duke of Ormond, 359 

Dundalatiighis, 240 

Dundalk, 342 

Dundelga, 143 

Dundrura, 146 

Dundrum Bay, 44, 45 

Durrow, 221, 250 

Early churches, 208 

Early schools of learning, tongues 

first studied iu, 203 
Eclipses of the sun and moon, 

record of, 218 
Edgehill, battle of, 326 
Elias, Bishop of Angouleme, 

France, testiraouv of, 250, 251 
Elizabeth, Queen, 321, 341 
Eraain, Banquet-hall of, 111 
Emain of Maca, 13, 110, 112, 115, 

122, 123, 129. 131, 140 
Engineering skill ten thousand 

years ago, 43 
Enniskillen, 34, 35, 341 
Eocaid, son of Ere, 81, 84, 86, 87 
Eocu, 146 
Erin, 141, 144 
Established Church, clergy of 

the, 376 
Etan,89 
Evangel of Galilee, the, 16 

Factna, son of Cass, 113 
Fair Head, 143 
Feidlimid, 242 

Ferdiad, 134, 135, 136, 138, 139, 
140 



Fergus mac Ro;'g, 13, 15, 16, 113, 

114, 121, 122, 123, 124, 129, 130, 

131, 133 
Fergus the Eloquent, 166, 177, 

262, 3(50 
Fermanagh, 33 
Feudal system, the, 289 
Feudal ownership, 291 
Find, ode to Spring of, 156 
Find, son of Cumal, 14, 16, 155, 

161, 162, 163, 166, 167, 171, 172, 

173, 177, 194, 246. 262 
Find, son of Ros, 146, 147, 152 
Finian, school of learning and 

religion founded by, 212 
Finvoy, 46 
Firbolgs, 60, 61, 69, 70, 77, 81, 82, 

84, a5, 86, 87, 88, 90, 105, 106 
Flann, 248 
Fomoriaus, 69, 70, 77, 81, 90, 91, 

92, 93, 106, 246 
Ford of Ferdiad, Ath-Fhirdia, 140 
Ford of Luan, 140 
Ford of Seannait, 226 
Ford of the Hurdles, 242, 243, 246 
Ford of the river, 14 
Franklin, Benjamin, letter of to 

Irish people, 367 
French Revolution, the, 372 

Gairec. 140 

Galiau of Lagin, 144 

(xaltee Mountaitis, 161 

Galwav, 5, 62, 350. 357 

Galway Bay, 31, 162 

Gal way Lakes, 31 

Gauls, the, 103 

Giant Stones, .30 

Ginkell, 354, 355, 357, 358 

Gladstone, 375 

Glan worth, 39 

Glendalouffh, 208, 221 

Glen Druid, 42 

Gold Mines River, 109 

Golden Vale, 161 

GoU :\rac Noma, 162 

Gran i a, 15, 171, 172, 173, 178 

Grattan, Henry, address of, to 

Dublin Parliament, 368 
Gray Lake, 37 
Grey Abbey, 302 

Headland of the Kings, 148 
Hill of Barnec, 162 



390 



INDEX. 



Hill of Howth, 239, 252 
Hill of Luchra, 146 
Hill of Eudraige, 44 
Hill of Tara, 155 
Hill of the Willows, 200 
Hill of Ward, 140 
Holycross Abbey, 304 
House of Delga, 143 
House of Mead, 199 
Howth, 239 
Howth Head, 43 
Hyperboreans, 60, 61, 62, 64, 69 

Iarl Strangbow, 275 

Indec, son of De Domnand, 90, 91 

Inis Fail, the Isle of Destiny, 21 

Inismurray, 237, 238, 239 

Zona, 215 

Ireland, art of working gold in, 

108, 178 
Ireland, causes of uprising in, 

320 
Ireland, condition of, in the 

eighteenth century, 365, 366, 

367 
Ireland, English influence in, 318 
Ireland, life in, two thousand 

years ago, 177, 178, 179, 180 
Ireland, national debt of, 372 
Ireland, sympathy of U. S. Con- 
gress for people of, 366, 367 
Ireland, traditions of, 110 
Ireland, the Insurrection of, 370, 

371, 372 
Ireland, visible and invisible, 3 
Irgalac, 149 
Iriel, 149 
Irish writing, earliest forms of, 

177 
Islay, 143 
Islay Hills, 119 

James II., 340, 341, 342, 343, 344, 

345, 34fi, 347, 353 
Jura, 119, 123, 143 

Kenmaee, 39 
Kenmare Eiver, 39, 104 
Kerry, 5, 62 
Kildare, 210, 221, 232 
Kilkenny, 42. 325, 326, 349 
. Killarney, 36, 39, 163 
Killee, 34 
Killmallock Abbey, 303 



Killteran Village, 43 

Kinsale, 340, 349 

King Gorm's Stone, 97 

King William, 345, 346, 347, 348, 

349, 350, 352, 365 
Knock-Mealdown Hills, 161 
Knockmoy Abbey, 306 
Knocknarea, 30 

Lake, General, statement of, 370 

Lake of Killarney, 161 

Lakes of Erne, 81 

Lambay, 236, 239, 241 

Land of the Cromlech-builders, 

57 
Land of the Ever Young, 95, 96 
Land tenure, 375, 376, 377,378, 

379, 380 
Laogaire, 199, 240 
Larne, 143 
Lauzun, 350 
Legamaddy, 45 
Leinster, 5, 162, 225, 226, 232, 345, 

350 
Leitrim, 81 
Leitrim Hills, 26 
Lennan in Monaghan, 46 
Life of the Cromlech-builders, 68 
Liffev, the, 242 

Limerick, 349, 350, 351, 354, 357 
Leinstermen, 232, 238 
Loing Seac, 224 
Lough Erne, 341 
Loch Etive, 119, 121 
Lough Foyle, 247 
Lough Garra, 37 
Lough Gill, 29 
Lough Gur, 38, 39 
Lough Key, 37 
Lough Leane, 161, 163 
Lough Mask, 85 
Lough Neagh, 110, 200 
Lough Ree, 140 
Loughcrew Hills, 43 
Louis XIV, 337, 340, 353 
Lug, surnamed Lamfada, the 

Long-Armed, 92, 93 
Lusk, 241 

Maca, Queen, 110 

Maelbridge, 217 

Mag Breag, 223 

Mag Eein, 81 

Mag Tuiread, 85, 87, 246 



INDEX. 



391 



Manjierton, 162 

Marlborough, Duke of, 352 

Mask, 85 

Mayo, 5, 62 

Mayo Cliffs, 26 

Meave, Queen of Connacht, 13, 

14, 15, 25, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 

136, 137, 140, 141, 142, 146, 147, 

178, 262 
Meath, 155, 242 
Men of Oluemacht, 144 
Message of the New Way, 264 
Messenger of the Tidings, 182 
Mide, 149 

Miocene Age, the, 58 
Modern form of old Irish names, 

234 
Monasterboiee, 221 
Monk, 326 
Molana Abbey, 306 
Molaise, 237 
Monasteries and religious schools, 

221 
Monroe, 324, 326, 327, 323, 329, 

330, 331, 333 
Monument of Pillared Stones, 

30 
Moore, 326 

Mount Venus Cromlech, 42 
Mountcashel, Lord, 342 
Mountains of Mourne, 44, 94, 146, 

193, 231 
Mountains of Storms, 26, 87 
Moville, 221, 239, 262 
Moytura, 31, 85 
Munster, 5 

Munstermen of Great Muma, 144 
Murcad, 238 

Naisi,115, 116, 117, 118, 120, 121, 

122, 129, 130 
Napier, Sir William, testimony 

of, 370 
Nectain's Shield, 232 
Nemed's sons, 87 
Nessa, 15, 113 

Norsemen, waning of the, 284 
Northern Cromlech Region, 54 
Northmen, 234, 235, 236, 243,251 
Nuada, the De Danaan king, 85, 

88, 89, 91, 92, 93 

O'CoNNELL, Daniel, 373 
O'Douuell, 321, 322 



O'Neill, Owen Roe, 321, 322, 323, 

324, 332, 333, 334, 338 
O'Neill, death of, 333 
O'Neill, defeat of English army 

bv, 326, 327, 328, 329, 330. 331, 

3(50 
Ogma, of the Sunlike Face, 92, 

95, 96 
Oscar, son of Ossin, 14 
Oscur, 155, 171 
Ossin, son of Find, 14, 15, 16, 155, 

161, 162, 167, 171, 172, 177, 181, 

194, 246, 262 
Ox Mountains, 87 

Parliament at Dublin, 323 
Parliament of Ireland, 371 
Parnell, Ciiarles Stewart, 380 
Patricius, 182 
Patricius, appeal of, to fellow- 

Cliristians of Coroticus, 195, 

196 
Patricius, birthplace of, 182 
Patricius, letter of, 182, 183, 184, 

185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 

192, 193 
Patrick, 17 

Patrick, his first victory com- 
memorated, 198 
Patrick, the dwelling of, 198 
Peat, age of, 34, 36 
Peat, rate of growth of, 33, 35, 66, 

67 
Penal Laws, the system of, 373 
Plain of Nia, 85 
Plain of the Headland, 82 
Plain of the Pillars, 85 
Plain of Tirerril, 91 
Plantation of Ulster, 322 
Poem of Ossin, 156 
Potitus, 182 
Prince William of Nassau, 339, 

340, 342 
Private taxation, 291 
Pyramids of stone, 93, 94 

QUOYLE River, 198, 240 

Ragallac, 217 

Raid of the Northmen, 234, 235, 

236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 

243 
Raids on islands of Irish coast, 

257, 258, 259 



392 



INDEX. 



Eaphoe, 47 
Eathcool, 162 
Eath-Laogaire, 199 
Eath of Badamar, 161 
Eed Hills of Leinster, 162 
Eeform Bill, the, 372 
Eestoration, the, 339 
Eoderick O'Conor, 61 
Eos Euad, 152 
Eos, son of Eudraige, 112 
Eudraige, 44, 112 
Eudraige, hill of, 44, 231 
Eunnymead, 317 

Saint Adamnan, 223, 224 

Saint Bernard, 298 

Saint Brigid, 210 

Saint Gamin's "Commentary on 

the Psalms," 222 
" Saint Colum of the Churches," 

212 
Saint Dominick, 298 
Saint Francis of Assisi,298 
Saint Mansuy, 60 
Saint Patrick, hody of laid at rest, 

201 
Saint Patrick, delivery of mes- 
sage by, to King Laogaire, 199 
Saint Patrick, visit of to kings of 

Leinster and Munster, 200 
Saint Patrick, work of, 199, 205 
Saint Euth, 354, 355 
Saint Euth, death of, 356 
Saint Samtain, 226 
Saint Samtain, epitaph of tlie 

saintly virgin, 226, 227 
Sarsfield, 351, 353, 355 
Saul, 208, 221 
Schomberg, 342, 343, 344, 345, 347, 

348 
Second Epoch, 13 
Senca, 144 
Shannon, the, 5, 32, 37, 130, 141, 

146, 350, 354, 357 
Sheldon, 357, 358 
Slane. 347, 348 
SlieveCallan,31, 39 
Slieve League, 26, 90 
Slieve Mish, 104, 132, 196 
Slievemore Mountain, 30 
Slieve na Calliagh, 95, 97 
Slieve-na-griddle, 45, 46 
Sligo, 25, 29, 90, 91 
Sligo Hills, 26 



Sons of Mil id, 103, 104, 105. 106, 
107, 112, 132 

Sound of Jura, 119, 123 

Southern Cromlech Province, 53 

Sreng, 82, 83, 84, 91, 93, 105 

Stone Circles, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 
34, 35, 38, 42, 45, 46, 47, 51, 52, 
53, 55, 72 

Stone Circles, clue to their build- 
ing, 40 

Stone Circles, measure of their 
years, 40 

Strand of Tralee, 161 

Strangford, 45 

Strangford Lough, 198 

Stuarts, the, 339 

Sualtam, 13 

Succat, 182 

Suir, 161 

Sullane Eiver, 39 

Summit of Prospects, 146 

Tailten, 106, 132 

Talbott, Earl of Tyrconnell, 359 

Tara, 81, 84, 106, 146, 147, 198 

Tara, Banquet-hall of, 112 

" The Church of the Oak-woods," 

210 
The Gravestones of the Sons of 

ISTemed, 87 
Thenav Eelics, the, 58 
Third Epocli, 14 
Three Waves of Erin, the, 146 
Tigearnac, 265 
Toppid Mountain, 35,36 
Traig Eotaile, 87 
Tralee, 32 

Treaty of Limerick, 361, 365 
Tuata De Danaan, 79, 84 
Twelve Peaks of Connemara, 

31 
Tyrconnell, Ladv, 340 
Tyrconnell, Lord, 340, 343, 344, 
345, 349, 351, 352, 353 

UlNCE, 162 

Ui-Neill, the,225, 232 

Ulad, 113, 130, 131, 133, 141, 151 

Ulaid, 113, 145, 150, 152 

Ulaid, Councils of the, 113 

Ulaid, men of the, 130 

Ulster, 5, 345 

Upper Erne, 32 

Usnac, 115 



INDEX. 



393 



Venice of Lough Rea, 37 
Volunteer Movement, the, 
369 



3(3" 



Waterford, 349, 350, 352 
Water of Luachan, 146 
Wave of Clidna, the, 146, 151 
Wave of Rudraige, tlie, 146, 151 
Wave of Tuag Inbir, the, 146, 151 



Waves of Erin, the three, 146. 

151 
Weiglit of Cromlech-stones, 56 
Wexford Harbor, 42 
Wicklow, 5 
Wicklow Gold-mines, the, 108 

109 

Yellow Ford of Athboy, 140 



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